- I'm Eric Bangeman from Ars Technica, and we're here today to sing the praises of the Alfa Romeo Stelvio. Jeremy Clarkson famously once said that you can't be a true petrol head until you've owned an Alfa Romeo. Whether or not that's true is debatable. But assuming it is, then I qualify, 'cause I've owned not one, but two Alfas: a '73 Spider, and an '82 Spider. Like many other fans of the iconic brand with the heart-shaped grill and the distinctive badge, I've been following the return of Alfa Romeo to the US market after a 20-year absence with a lot of interest. Earlier this year, we looked at the sporty Giulia. It's a fantastic car. But if Alfa wants to chase the suburban moms and dads that cart their kids around in BMW X3s and Audi Q5s, it needs a crossover. And a crossover we have here.

- [Eric Voiceover] What we're looking at is a Stelvio TI Sport all-wheel drive with a base MSRP of just under $44,000. Tricked out with a sport package, adaptive cruise control, the cold weather package, and a few other bells and whistles, the car I've had the pleasure of driving this week sports a sticker price of $53,640. It's sleek and lovely on the outside, with a front end borrowed heavily from the Giulia. There's not as much clearance as you get with other crossovers and smaller SUVs. You're not gonna drive the Stelvio down a bumpy gravel road so that you can sit around the campfire and put away a few PBRs with your friends. No, you're gonna drive straight past the turnoff up to the lodge at the top of the mountain, so you can enjoy a nice glass of pinot grigio by the fireplace. And you're gonna enjoy every minute of the drive to get there. The interior is an odd mix of basic and luxury. The sleek-looking dashboard is trimmed with carbon fiber, and the sport seats are hand-stitched leather. But the material used on the dashboard and doors looks more like something you'd find in a Hyundai or Kia. And the massive plastic paddle shifters block your view of the turn signal and windshield wiper levers. The sport seats will take some getting used to, especially if you're on the hefty side. But there's plenty of headroom, and the front seats support you well. And with the cold weather package, a must-have here in Chicago, the power seats and the flat-bottomed leather-wrapped steering wheel get nice and toasty. This Stelvio comes with the optional 8.8" infotainment display, which is largely controlled by a pair of click wheels. Even though it's part of Fiat Chrysler, Alfa uses its own multimedia interface system, which has little in common with the solid touch-screen Uconnect you'd see on a Chrysler. That's a shame, as this one is a bit clunky to navigate. Trying to change the artist or playlist on your smartphone involves freshly navigating through your entire music library each time. You can access parts of the car manual on the MMI, but inputting an address to the GPS involves way too much dial turning and clicking. Normally, I'd bypass the GPS and media system in favor of CarPlay, but that is not yet available on the Stelvio. Support for both Android Auto and CarPlay is coming to the 2018 Stelvio soon, and it can't arrive quickly enough. On the road, the driver assist package does what you'd expect. Adaptive cruise control works very well, and when activated, lane assist will chide you if you drift over. The rear seats are fairly spartan. The bench-style seats can fold down independently, leaving tons of room for groceries, luggage, boxes, or anything else you need to cart around. The Stelvio seats five, but if you're over eight years old, you're going to have a bad time in the middle seat. Once you get the Stelvio out on the highway, its Italian racing heritage is readily apparent. Like the Giulia, the Stelvio features Alfa's DNA driving modes. Advanced Efficiency is designed to maximize your fuel economy, while Natural gives you that solid and comfortable ride you'd expect from a European crossover. It's in Dynamic mode where the Stelvio shines. When you move the dial to D, the accents on the instrument cluster turn red, and the shift points are delayed a bit. The result is a kind of speed and quickness I've never experienced in a crossover before. I haven't timed how fast it actually takes to go from zero to 60, but after flooring it a couple of times from a dead spot, I find the claims believable. There are couple of quirks with this vehicle, including a bit of inexplicable wind noise at high speeds.

- At the end of the day, it's an Alfa Romeo. It's beautiful, it's stylish, and it's quirky. But the quirks don't take away from what is really an incredibly fun car to drive.