Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale 2025 review – a rare Italian jewel beyond compare

Here’s a novel thought. Does it actually matter what the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale is like to drive? Seeing one in real life carries Halley’s Comet odds: appositely, only 33 cars will be built, each tailor-made for individual customers around the world. Alfa Romeo hasn’t officially disclosed a price, but it’s understood to be around the £1.5m mark (before taxes). Nonetheless, the production run is sold out. 

It doesn’t really exist in the ‘normal’ car universe; it’s a machine launched into the weird, extraordinary orbit of the ultra-wealthy. Perhaps some owners will drive their 33 Stradales far and wide, but it would be understandable (and unsurprising) if the cars spend much of their time tucked away in secure, climate-controlled storage. 

The 33 won’t appear in group tests with other supercars. We may not have the chance to get behind its aluminium-spoked steering wheel again. And perhaps the fact that a brand-new Alfa Romeo supercar exists in 2025, is special enough. (As you’ll read shortly, that it was green-lit for production at all is an against-the-odds tail.) If it’s merely okay to drive, that would be, well, okay, wouldn’t it? Because, look at it. Under the sunlight at Alfa Romeo’s Balocco test track in northern Italy, it’s a spellbinding object to behold.

Of course, what it’s like to drive does matter. If the new 33 Stradale turned out to be a show pony without substance – a synthesised, auto-tuned cover version of the original 33 Stradale of the 1960s, from which this car takes both its name and overall inspiration – it would undermine the history, the romance, the sense of occasion that makes it desirable in the first place.

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Good news: on-track, with sun-warmed air coursing through the vents artfully carved into the Stradale’s haunches (and into its headlights too), brawny turbocharged V6 soaring to its redline and low-lying nose pointed at the snow-capped horizon, the 33 feels very good to drive indeed.

As the number and name imply, the new car is a modern interpretation of the 1967-1969 33 Stradale – an achingly beautiful road-going version of the Tipo 33 Le Mans racer, designed by Franco Scaglioni. At £6100 (£141,500 in today’s money), it was the most expensive car in the world. Weirdly, that sounds like something of a bargain in modern context. It’s a little more valuable today, since only 18 were made.

Not since the 4C in the 2010s has Alfa Romeo created a carbon-monocoque, mid-engined car. Creating the new 33 would have been a totally from-scratch job were it not for access to the building blocks of the Maserati MC20, also within the Stellantis fold. Incidentally, the MC20 was originally intended to be an Alfa Romeo supercar, before circumstances changed and it was reassigned to Maserati.

A condition of sale is that no two new 33 Stradales can be the same. Each customer has gone through a bespoke speccing process, most at the Sala del Consiglio inside the Alfa Romeo Museum in Arese: the room in which the original 33 was signed off, recognised and protected by Italy’s ministry of culture.

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Aside from bespoke liveries, trims and wheel designs, customers can choose more complex options: different configurations for the air outlets in the rear arches and tail, for example, and the style of the front shield: a retro design like the ’60s 33, or a more progressive 3D shape as on the car tested here (which will find its way onto future Alfa Romeo models). Inside, there are two ‘suggested’ themes, a brushed aluminium and leather ‘Tributo’ combo or more modern carbonfibre and alcantara ‘Corse’ scheme, but customers can blend the two or request alternative materials.

Some meetings scheduled for two hours have gone on for eight hours, Busceti explains, and many customers visit further times with family members, fine-tuning their choices with a second opinion. He adds that ‘90 per cent of customers’ cars are totally different.’ While Alfa Romeo reserved the right to veto any particularly outré choices, only one request was turned down; to swap the Alfa Romeo badge for a personal emblem. Photographer Rich Pearce and I spec ‘our’ car with a demure Midnight Blue body with satin gold wheels and biscotto interior, and the evo logo engraved on one of the steering wheel spokes, if you’re interested.

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Across town, the real customers’ 33s are already in production at Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera. Alfa Romeo does not have the capacity to assemble this specialised supercar in-house, and outsourcing production to Touring’s consultancy is a practical solution as well as a romantic, historically resonant one: during early and latter periods of its 99-year history, Touring has constructed various storied Alfas including the 1938 8C 2.9 Le Mans car, the experimental Disco Volantes of the ’50s, and the 2013 modern interpretation of the Disco Volante, based on 8C Competizione running gear.

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The 33’s carbon chassis – shared with the Maserati – is built elsewhere in Modena before arriving at Touring. Constructing the body-in-white is the longest, most complex process. As with the rest of the body work, the front and rear clamshells – or cofangos – are made from single large sections of carbonfibre, painstakingly fitted and checked. There is no automation. Everything is manual. You can see where a great deal of the 33’s princely price goes; this is not a cheap car to manufacture. Currently, one 33 is being completed per month. The first customer car was delivered on 17 December 2024; an apt date as the project was signed off on 17 April 2023, which gives some idea of the rapidity in this car’s conception and development.

While much of the 33’s architecture is shared with the MC20, its suspension is different, using the same semi-active dampers as the Giulia Quadrifoglio, plus rear-wheel steering, a feature not fitted to the MC20. The 3-litre twin-turbo V6 engine, driving the rear wheels only, develops the same 621bhp output as the Maserati’s Nettuno unit. Is it a Maserati or Alfa engine? The MC20’s Nettuno engine was developed from the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio’s V6 (which itself was created with input from Ferrari), with the biggest step-change from Giulia to MC20 being the Maserati’s ‘pre-chamber’ combustion system. So arguably, it contains a little of all three brands.

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Its shape is remarkably clean without fixed wings nor active aero surfaces, with a slippery .375 drag coefficient. Eye-socket-like intakes integrated into the headlight area cool the brakes and channel airflow, while the door mirror support helps martial airflow along the car’s flanks where it's divided into the upper and lower radiators by the side intakes – the subject of hours of fine-tuning in the windtunnel.

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As a special ‘bottega’ project, there was neither time nor resource for multiple 33 Stradale prototypes. Besides a static ‘mock-up,’ one physical, driveable prototype 33 Stradale was built: car no. ‘00.’ That’s the car we’ll be driving; the only functional 33 Stradale that exists outside of the 33 customer cars.

Prototypes are often rough, untidy machines. Car 00 is just as much a show car as a validation car: a concept-car-standard demonstrator of the 33’s design inside and out, and a hard-working test car, racking up nearly 2000 miles of testing at Balocco, Nardo and beyond. It recorded a spookily appropriate 333kph (207mph) top speed at the Nardo bowl and at Balocco, its test drivers have included former Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 pilot Valtteri Bottas. He’s one of the 33 customers, incidentally; car no.17 will be his.

The 33 looks at once compact and imposing: more than 2m wide but less than 1.2m tall. You can see the Maserati MC20’s hard points within its graceful silhouette but it’s very much a car with its own identity. The helix-hinged doors are raised and an evocative scent of leather spills from the cabin.

The interior is as striking as the exterior. Since the doors take a large section of the roof with them when they’re raised, you have a large, curved aperture through which to drop into the seat. The door needs a hefty pull to close. Once thunked shut, you find yourself in an airy cockpit; the glass panels in the top of the doors let a generous amount light through the roof. The sunshine dances over the brushed aluminium on the centre console, dash and steering wheel, though the doors’ tinted glass ensures it never dazzles.

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 There are no buttons on the wheel. Instead, tactile, crank-shaped rocker switches are the principal switchgear on the centre console and a separate panel mounted in the roof. Two gigantic switches put the car in gear, and toggle between manual, auto and reverse. Thereafter, the eight-speed, dual-clutch transmission is controlled via the enormous, samurai-blade-like paddles behind the wheel, as per the Giulia Quadrifoglio.

Feedback from the 33’s clients suggested they wanted a break from touchscreens and haptic pads inside their other cars (good on them), so there’s no visible infotainment screen inside the Stradale – it’s hidden neatly behind the centre console. When you need or want to access it, you flick the schermo switch, and the screen slides neatly into position. Speaking of electric components, you may remember the 33 was initially offered with either the V6 or a fully electric powertrain. Two customers initially opted for the EV before eventually changing their minds; all 33 cars will be petrol-powered.

The engine starts via a push/turn of a rotating switch. Alfa Romeo’s engineers wanted the 33 to sound as evocative as possible, and studied the frequencies from the car they considered to be the best-sounding Alfa of recent times: the 8C Competizione. Through tuning the length and diameter of the exhaust system, the frequencies throughout the V6’s rev range match the 8C’s as closely as possible. Mind you, there is an 8C Spider trundling around Balocco’s courtyard and it sounds like a window into heaven. Two extra cylinders and no turbochargers is tricky to compete with.

The 33 does sound good as we pull away, however – a brusque but cultured tone, punctuated by occasional breathy gasps from the turbos. It’s a more vocal, textured sounding car than the MC20. We’re padding through the access roads to the test track, following an Alfa Romeo test driver in a Giulia GTA. Balocco is used by Stellantis and the wider automotive industry for a whole host of testing purposes but appropriately we’re heading for the ‘Alfa Romeo Circuit:’ the very first circuit constructed here in the early ’60s, for the purpose of testing Alfa road and race cars, including the original Tipo 33.

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Building speed gradually, the 33 is a relatively user-friendly supercar to acclimatise to. The view ahead over the low nose and through the wraparound glass either side gives it an airy feel, and though you can barely see anything through the polycarbonate engine cover behind, the rear-view mirror can be toggled to show a very effective camera display, as per the MC20.

The steering wheel is a lovely tactile thing to hold, with its slim leather-bound rim and cool-to-the-touch spokes. The steering itself is slower in rate and response than many modern performance cars – an observation rather than a criticism, although the 33 changes direction a little more languidly than you might expect in slower corners. The rear-steer system operates purely for stability in high-speed corners, turning the rear wheels in the same direction as the fronts, rather than the opposite way for pivoting into corners at lower speeds.

The pace builds and the hazard lights flash automatically on the Giulia ahead as its driver works its brakes hard. The 33’s brake pedal needs a good firm press. Like the Giulia Quadrifoglio, the 33 employs a brake-by-wire system. Initiall, the carbon-composite brakes (with six-piston calipers at the front) feel a little remote but stopping power is mighty, particularly as temperature builds. You can hear the faint sshhh of pads against the composite discs as your foot brushes the pedal, like cupping a seashell to your ear. Perhaps a facet of the stiff carbon construction transmitting sounds to the cabin, you hear stray stones ping and patter against the wheelarches too, a little like a racing car.

It's stable like a racing car under hard braking too, unlike some mid-engined cars which can get a little flighty. But in other respects, the 33 definitely feels like a car set up for the road rather than the track – as it has been designed to be from the outset. (The thought of loading it up with the custom luggage kit – created to fit into the car’s small front boot compartment and slightly larger rear sections – and heading out on a grand tour is an evocative one.) It’s certainly extremely capable on track, however, especially when switched from its standard Strada drive mode to Pista. 

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The damping is notably soft and supple in Strada, and still has a reasonable amount of ‘give’ in Pista (and you can mix and match damper settings and drive mode via another toggle switch). In Pista, the 33 is more eager in every respect – engine, gearshifts, damping – and its digital instrument panel twists the central tacho for a 12’ o clock redline and flanks it with essential temperatures, including the brakes. Alfa clearly intends the 33 to have the potential to be driven hard. The shift lights are integrated into the tacho, the rifled sections of the screen’s telescopic shroud acting as light guides.

The Giulia ahead is an invaluable pathfinder as I’ve no idea which way the circuit goes. It's a long lap, narrow and bumpy in places, with low-speed snake-coil switchbacks and ballsy fast corners too, some of which are designed to replicate corners at Monza, Le Mans and Spa. As is the way with mid-engined cars, the 33 can move around if you have a confidence lift mid-corner, but it’s ultimately a safe, stable car.

 The traction control errs on the side of caution and can be a little abrupt when it cuts in over Balocco’s bumps, but another click of the crank switch accesses a further Pista ESC Off mode. The differential is electronically controlled but it’s a true limited-slip diff, as opposed to the torque vectoring e-diff in the original Giulia Quadrifoglio, happily. The baseline handling trait is toward understeer – not a bad thing, it’s a road car after all – but with more laps, more corners, it’s clear this is a car you can play with, and it won’t bite. It’s on your side. The responsiveness of the turbocharged engine is helpful too; you can feed the throttle in very precisely and the revs pick up in a linear, responsive way.

The Bridgestone Potenza Sports are ‘off-the-shelf’ tyres rather than bespoke developed for the car (just as the GMA T.50, for example, uses Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres). They heat up nicely on this warm day, and telegraph their limits well.

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Relocating to Balocco’s Langhe track, which replicates a country road, the 33 is also well resolved over crests and undulations (even with fresh air under its tyres over a light yump). Being dispassionate, I’d subjectively say less rarefied but also rear-drive, non-hybrid, turbocharged supercars such as the McLaren 750S or a Ferrari 488 or F8 Tributo, would be faster and even more thrilling here at Balocco. Although the 33’s dynamics are very impressive and rewarding, there’s a nagging sense they could be even more polished with more development time and budget.

But this is the opposite of a dispassionate car. If you were to look at it rationally, you could buy a Maserati MC20 and save yourself a million quid and change. But it has a different personality from the MC20, both as an entity and in the way it drives. Back in the UK, we test an MC20 within days of the 33, and the two cars do truly feel very different to operate though they share so many mechanicals. 

Aside from the car itself, the 33’s 33 owners are paying for an experience: the 1:1 access to top-table management, designers and engineers inside Alfa and Touring Superleggera, the process of speccing a one-of-a-kind car, and the immersion in all the romance and resonance of creating a little piece of Alfa Romeo history. Leaving all that aside, the 33 Stradale is a great driving experience.

Further limited-run Alfa Romeo bottega projects will follow, each similarly limited to 33 cars. Such cars might exist in the vaguely irrelevant stratosphere of the ultra-rich but, somehow, they make the wider automotive world a little bit richer for their existence.

Price, rivals and specs

As above, the 33 Stradale is thought to cost from around £1.5million plus local taxes, before getting into the in-depth specification process. Being such a rare machine that's as much a piece of art as it is a mode of transport, objective comparison feels crude. But cars of its like from other marques include the Aston Martin Valour and Bentley Batur – ostensibly very different cars, albeit ones that tread the same rarified, semi-coachbuilt ground as the 33 for about the same money. A cynic might say its close relative, the MC20, might be a good alternative too, at least on a functional level, for almost a tenth of the price.