Sports-Sedan Rivals: Alfa vs. BMW vs. Genesis vs. Volvo

From Car and Driver

Close your eyes, please. Okay, wait. You’ll have to open them if you’re going to read. Did you open them yet? Great. Now, take a nice deep breath. Feel the air rush through your nostrils as your lungs expand. And hold. Two. Three. Four. Now release. Ah . . .

Here we are again, at our center. Driving sports sedans, the vehicles that, more than any others, exemplify the Car and Driver ethos. They’re practical, fun, and relatively efficient. They don’t necessarily need to be from premium brands. If cars like these existed for $15,000 less without the snooty logos punched onto their noses, we’d be into that. But they don’t. Breathe in. Breathe out. Accept.

So here we are with a quartet of luxury sports sedans—two past 10Best winners, one legendary 10Best nameplate, and a Volvo. After a 23-year run, the BMW 3-series fell off our list in 2015. It was all-new for 2019, though, and reactions to encounters with the G20 generation have varied widely depending on how the vehicle was spec’d: engine, tires, suspension, and so on. This one is a 330i, powered by a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four, with a base price of $41,245. The $5000 M Sport package (including variable-ratio steering), the $2450 Track Handling package (upgraded brakes, adaptive dampers, and a limited-slip differential), and—ahem—another $10,525 in luxury, tech, and paint options inflate the bottom line to $59,220.

Alfa Romeo just gave the Giulia mild interior and exterior freshenings for 2020, but the company didn’t have any new models available, so we’ve got a 2019. It’s still a strong contender. It landed on 10Best as soon as it arrived on our shores, and the steroid ape of the Giulia family, the 505-hp Quadrifoglio, vanquished a handful of our favorite cars in a comparison test in 2017. Then again, the experience with our long-term QF was so fraught that staff editor Austin Irwin, while rating back-seat comfort, quipped, “This would not be a comfortable place to wait for the tow truck.” This is the 280-hp base model’s first comparison test. It, too, has a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four. And here, a full raft of options lifts the price from $44,740 to $52,990.

With the launch of the G70, Hyundai/Kia’s nascent luxury brand, Genesis, has a toehold in its first high-volume segment. True to Korean automotive principles, the G70 borrows freely from the established practices of its competitors and piles on luxury and technology features at considerable savings. Its spec sheet reads like an average of the segment leaders’—and would you look at that? It also has a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four! And then there’s the heated and ventilated front seats (with 16-way adjustment for the driver), the 8.0-inch touchscreen, the 19-inch summer tires, and the lowest-in-test price of $44,895.

Chinese ownership has ushered in an interesting new era at Volvo. Also redesigned for 2019, the S60 is striking inside and out—and it’s built in South Carolina now. The only engine available is a honey-ham-burning brick oven with three steam turbines that weighs 3000 pounds. Just kidding. It’s a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four, though a Chipotle-like menu of add-ons can take it from 250 horsepower to beyond 400. Want 316 horses? That’d be the T6, which keeps the turbo and adds a supercharger. The T8, with its plug-in-hybrid system, pumps things up to 400 horses. The Polestar Engineered perform­ance variant hits 415. This one, called T5 Momentum, is the base model. It squeezes 250 horsepower from the four-banger. Three hefty option packages cover the luxury, tech, and multimedia bases and help kick the S60’s price from $37,045 to $46,240.

We pointed our group south, hoping to escape the unseasonable cold front that dumped nearly a foot of snow on C/D HQ in early November. In Beckley, West Virginia, we found respite from freezing temperatures only to discover that dewy mountain roads, slick with mud from coal-mining trucks, don’t agree with summer tires much more than ice or sleet does. Keep your eyes open from here on in.

4th Place:
2020 Volvo S60

Highs: Sleek and serene, a comfy place to pass the miles.
Lows: Not interested in your winding roads and squealing tires; artisanal teas, on the other hand . . .
Verdict: A cardigan-pattern vinyl wrap would be fitting—and that’s okay.

As far as any of us can remember, this is the first comparison test we’ve hosted with this much engine similarity among competitors. And yet, every car here has a distinct personality.

The Volvo, with its strong and clear attitude, doesn’t want to be rushed, and neither will its driver. We quite enjoyed a previous encounter with the more firmly sprung T6 R-Design, but we don’t necessarily regret that we didn’t have one for this brouhaha. All our voters liked the S60. It’s just not what we were looking for this time around.

The steering reacts quickly off-center but has a generic, indifferent front-drive numbness to it. And while the Volvo’s body control isn’t sloppy and the car could be pushed to almost keep up, it isn’t ever quite taut enough—or any fun. The transmission is eager to upshift but less so to drop down a gear. And getting caught too low in the rev range exposes the engine’s laggy nature.

The Volvo’s brake pedal is soft from the get-go, but even when we heated the rotors to stinking, it never got any mushier. And more important, the stoppers never faded, turning in a 163-foot stop from 70 mph. That braking result, though last place, is commendable considering only the Volvo wore all-season tires. Still, when we hit the fun roads squiggling through coal country, whoever was driving the Volvo would volunteer to drop to the back of our convoy so as not to hold up the others.

But when the ballots were cast and it was time to turn north and head home, the Volvo driver refused to get out and trade cars with anyone. Cushy front seats and a sleek interior design that should still look stylish 10 years from now make the S60 a great partner for long distances. That goes for the back seat as well, which boasts plenty of room and a cozy armrest—as long as you’re not riding three across.

Remember that line from The Rock, when Stanley Goodspeed, testifying to his unsuitability for the mission at hand, says, “I drive a Volvo. A beige one”? He turned out to be a capable action hero anyway. Not so much with the S60.

3rd Place:
2020 Genesis G70

Highs: Outcorners and outstops the Alfa, rich cabin design.
Lows: Derivative exterior style and that giant grille, lots of noise and vibration.
Verdict: One more leap like this and the G70 will be a full-fledged challenger regardless of price.

It was a bit of a lie to say that each car here has a distinct personality. The G70 is quite obviously mimicking the 3-series in its feel and balance. And in some ways, it betters its benchmark. Tugs and twitches feed back through the steering wheel as cornering forces build and fall, whereas the only tugs the BMW driver feels are when that car’s obnoxious lane-keeping system thinks a crack in the road is a painted line and swerves to follow.

But the Genesis lacks the polish of the BMW and the Alfa Romeo. There’s more shudder through its structure, and midcorner bumps upset it more than they do the two other rear-drivers. And when the driver gets back on the gas, the G70 just spins its inside tire.