Oops! Alfa Romeo shows video of its Stelvio SUV by mistake

September 15, 2016 by Alastair Sloane

Fiat Chrysler has withdrawn from its YouTube site a video that mistakenly showed a pre-production version of Alfa Romeo’s new SUV, the Stelvio.

The mini-documentary was all about the making of the Giulia sedan at the company’s factory in Cassino, Italy. But at about a minute into it the Stelvio appeared making its way along the production line.

The video was quickly removed, but not before many global motoring websites grabbed the image off the screen. It showed the SUV with a light disguise over doors and mud guards but with a visible front end.

The screen grab provides the clearest look yet at Alfa Romeo’s first SUV – earlier spy images, like the one pictured at right, featured prototypes wearing heavy body cladding.

Stelvio will use the same rear- and all-wheel drive Giorgio platform as the Giulia sedan. The two cars should be roughly the same length and width, although the Stelvio will obviously be taller and have a higher ride height.

It will also get the same suite of engines offered in the Giulia. Depending on the market, this will include a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine in both 150kW and 206kW trims, and a 2.2-litre turbo-diesel developing either 110kW or 135kW.

A high-performance variant – and one is expected to take on the Porsche Macan, along others – is likely to be powered by the same Ferrari-designed 2.9-litre turbocharged V6 as used in the Giulia Quadrifoglio.

In the Giulia it delivers 375kW/600Nm and sprints from 0-100km/h in 3.9 seconds on its way to a top speed of 307km/h. Stelvio is expected to break cover at the Los Angeles motor show in November. Don’t expect it in New Zealand until late 2017 or early 2018.

If you are in a position to shell out upwards of NZ$600,000 for the 60^thanniversary Porsche 911 S/T or optional Porsche 911 S/T Heritage, you’ll no doubt want the signature titanium watch that goes with it. That’s how Porsche figures it anyway. Or, if you want the watch you’ll need to get the car. Both the car and the watch are limited to 1963 units, the year the original 911 model broke cover. The watch – Chronograph 1 911 S/T and Chronograph 1 911 S/T Heritage – and the car carry matching edition numbers. The watch is priced at $US13,500, or around $NZ22,200. The car, says Porsche NZ, starts at $NZ608,000. A “strictly limited number” will go into production for NZ early next year.

Eight European Union countries are pushing to weaken new EU emissions limits for cars, saying they are overly ambitious and unrealistic for carmakers to hit. The eight countries – France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – said in a joint paper that parts of the proposed Euro 7 regulation, including curbs on exhaust pipe emissions, should be scrapped entirely. They said the limits would force carmakers to invest in improving exhaust emissions performance, money which would be better spent on developing zero-emission vehicles. Taken together, the countries would have enough votes to block the proposal.

A go-anywhere EV concept for the US military uses an onboard 12kW diesel generator to top up the batteries on the move. The all-wheel-drive has 800-volt technology and a 200kWh battery pack to power three electric motors, two in the rear and one up front. Claimed output is 745kW/15,590Nm, or 1000hp and 11,500 ft-lb of torque. The four-seater was developed by the defence division of General Motors and is based on the platform of the Hummer SUV. It rides on Fox performance shock absorbers and 37-inch tyres and comes with “exceptional” approach and departure angles for off-road mobility. Maximum range using the generator to keep things ticking over is said to be around 500km.

The outside temperature in Midland, Texas, was 40.5C when staff at the local office of the US National Weather Service set out to show the cabin of a closed car can literally get baking hot in summer. They mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and laid them on the car’s dashboard – the surface of which showed a temperature of 87.7C. A little over four hours later the cookies were ready to eat. “Even though ours weren’t golden brown, we can confirm that they are done and delicious,” the staff wrote on Facebook.