Alfa Romeo Won't Build a Tonale Quadrifoglio Unless It's Powerful Enough

Photo: Alfa Romeo

The Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio may not be known for its reliability, but it sure is a blast to drive. It’s not just that it makes more than 500 hp and is seriously quick. It also offers incredible handling and surprisingly great steering. So now that Alfa has introduced the Tonale, its small crossover, we can expect a Quadrifoglio version of that one, as well, right? Not necessarily.

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To be fair, Alfa Romeo recently told The Drive that it’s open to the idea. But at least for now, the claim is that if it’s going to actually build a Tonale Quadrifoglio, it’s going to have to make true Quadrifoglio power. And there’s no guarantee that engineers will be able to do that.

“If we can’t deliver the level of performance or delta of performance already found in our current models, we’re not gonna do it,” Larry Dominique, Senior Vice President and Head of Alfa Romeo and Fiat North America told The Drive. “[CEO] Jean-Philippe Imparato and I are open to it, but only with the right levels of performance.”

Part of the problem is that the Tonale was developed before Dominique and Imparato joined Alfa. So neither one was able to make sure it was flexible enough to be Quadrifoglio-ed. We suspect the final answer is going to be “no.” But we appreciate Alfa not watering down its top performance badge just because there’s more profit in a high-performance car. And it sounds like we’ll still get sportier, more powerful Tonales in the future.

“We will always try to offer slightly more enhanced versions of our more volume trims like Veloce and so on, but Quadrifoglio has to stand hand and shoulders over everything else,” Dominique told The Drive. “I don’t want to be a poser. I don’t want to pollute the Quadrifoglio brand. I want to make sure we stay pure.”