• Good legroom for four but low roofline in the back
• Middle rear seat is really for display purposes only
• Competitively-sized boot with slightly awkward shape

How much space is there?

There’s plenty of room in the cabin for four people, with six-footers able to sit fore and aft simultaneously, but forget transporting five because of the heavily-contoured rear seat and transmission tunnel, which compromises foot room in the rear.

The lack of headroom and relatively cramped middle seat means that the fifth occupant will be chewing their kneecaps for the entire journey. Taller adults in the outer pews will find headroom restricted too. So, it’s less roomy than the BMW 3 Series and Audi A4, but easily trumps the Jaguar XE.

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Boot space and storage

The boot measures 480 litres, and it does have a decent-sized opening for a saloon car, but the shape of the aperture is such that larger items will foul around three quarters of the way to the rear seats as luggage space makes way for wheelarches.

Alfa Romeo doesn’t supply a seats-down measurement for the Giulia but obviously there’s more space with them down – although not a huge amount more and the load floor isn’t flat thanks to a lump from the folded chairs.

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Is it easy to park?

A long wheelbase relative to its overall length means the Alfa Romeo Giulia can get away with being shorter than rivals like the Audi A4, for example, without compromising interior space. That means you’re unlikely to struggle with parking this svelte Italian saloon.

Safety

• Five-star rating from Euro NCAP
• Impressive adult occupant safety
• Lots of standard kit but no LED headlights

The Alfa Romeo Giulia received a full five-star rating from Euro NCAP in 2016 with an impressive 98% result for adult occupants. This won’t reflect the current tougher testing regime, though.

Standard safety equipment includes a forward collision warning system, low-speed autonomous emergency braking and lane-departure warning. From 2023 all models get Matrix LED headlights, a big improvement on the previous xenons.

Optional features include adaptive cruise control and blindspot monitoring.

The ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) collection includes:

• Lane keeping assist
• Active blind spot assist
• Active cruise control
• Traffic sign recognition and intelligent speed control
• Traffic jam assist and highway assist (autonomous driving)
• Driver attention assist

Watch the Euro NCAP crash test video