2024 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Competizione First Test: A Great SUV for a Particular Person

You need to be a certain person to drive an Alfa Romeo Stelvio. That doesn’t mean it takes special skills to drive, or even a special handshake to access one at the dealership. But you need a specific combination of personality traits to fully appreciate and enjoy this SUV.

You love owning beautiful things. This one isn’t hard to embody—who prefers ugly stuff? The Stelvio, even seven model years into its run, remains one of the most beautiful SUVs you can buy. The styling is a masterclass in imbuing metal with emotion, being equal parts seductive and athletic. And whether you love or hate Alfa’s traditional shield grille and logo—we love it—it’s integrated perfectly between smoldering, aggressive headlamps. As far as SUVs go, it’s an Italianate beauty, and no one who knows anything will ever complain about a set of Alfa phone dial wheels.

It helps that our test Stelvio was a Competizione, the penultimate trim introduced for 2024 that basically boils down to the similarly aggressive good looks and some performance hardware from the wicked, 505-hp Quadrifoglio but with the base 280-hp 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. That also means a handsome, contrasting-stitched interior that feels worth the Stelvio’s $60K as-tested price. We also loved the 1960s-inspired mode for the newly adopted digital gauge cluster.

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You appreciate difficult work done very well. As vehicles get heavier and taller, it becomes progressively harder to make them handle well; in the simplest terms, weight is the enemy of performance, and a higher center of gravity is harder to tame. Thus, SUVs handle worse than cars. Except the Stelvio. It blows these truisms out of the water at anything less than hair-on-fire speeds with responsive turn-in, a firm but faultlessly damped ride, and exemplary body control. It’s true that overly aggressive cornering can deliver safe understeer, but this Alfa feels far more alive and eager than nearly anything else at its price point this side of true sports cars. Some credit goes to the Competizione model’s standard limited-slip differential.

The steering deserves a special shout-out. Too many vehicles play at being sporty with heavy steering, particularly when you turn the wheel, with little concern for accuracy. The result is usually tired shoulders and imprecise handling. The Stelvio’s wheel, though, weights up progressively and perfectly as tire loads increase, and it’s light and lively no matter the situation.

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You prefer having things be just so, and favor routine. If this is you, then the Alfa is definitely up your alley. Because you’ll need a preflight checklist every time you get into this SUV. First, shut off the engine stop/start; it’s a bit rough and too prominent. Then, reconnect your phone if the infotainment has decided not to recognize it, as happened to us a couple of times. Then turn the chassis mode “DNA” knob—D for Dynamic, N for Normal, A for Advanced—to your preferred position, as it resets every time you cycle the ignition.

We went with Dynamic and then took the extra step of punching the button in the center of the knob to put the Stelvio Competizione’s adaptive dampers in their softer setting whenever we hopped in. Thanks, Michigan potholes.

You must be patient. Punch the throttle in Normal, and you’ll find the 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder on a smoke break, and it takes a few pokes to get it back to work. Better to use the livelier Dynamic mode, as we did, in which the 2.0-liter and transmission are far more responsive.

Do that, and the Stelvio finally feels like it’s making the full 280 horsepower and 306 lb-ft of torque. Even so, our best 0–60 run came in at 5.4 seconds, quick enough to dice with traffic but nothing to particularly write home about.

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You must be forgiving and willing to overlook quirks. None of these are dealbreakers, but the Stelvio’s quirks are numerous. The wipers don’t handle snow well, mostly smearing it around; plan on buying better wiper blades. It beeps loudly multiple times when you lock it with the fob for no good reason; you cannot turn this off. The remote start only worked within 15 feet or so, and with no obstructions—including windows—between the fob and the car, largely defeating the purpose of remote start.

There's no visual indication that the rear wiper is turned on except the wiper’s own movement. You can’t display both outside temperature and a compass in the digital gauge cluster at the same time, despite the owner’s manual showing a picture of just that. Finding the trip meters is overly obtuse. The infotainment screen is a small rectangle inside a much larger, interestingly shaped bezel. We would have loved not only more screen real estate but for the display to mimic the shape of the frame. There are more oddities, but you get the picture.

Lastly, you value emotional experiences above all. No one knows what an Alfa Romeo is, even nearly a decade after its return to America; your Stelvio won’t impress anyone except fellow driving connoisseurs, so badge snobs need not apply. Italian automakers don’t have sensational records for reliability, so you’ll need to shrug off sneers and jibes. (Of course, you can fire back that Alfa was No. 3 in J.D. Power’s 2023 initial quality rankings.) In short, you prioritize owning a vehicle that gives as much back to you as you do to it, one which fosters an emotional connection, warts and all.

If you fit these criteria, you’ll love the Alfa Romeo Stelvio. (We do.) Everyone else? Maybe hit up Mercedes, Lexus, or BMW.

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