GRR Garage: How to justify spending £3,250 on carbon‑fibre fibre seats

Obviously £3,250 is a hefty wedge of cash to spend on anything, let alone the seats in an Alfa Romeo SUV. But if I were buying a Stelvio or Giulia Quadrifoglio, I’d rummage down the back of the sofa, clean my neighbour’s car for a year and sell a kidney if it allowed me to pull together the extra money to buy them.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, they are incredibly comfortable and supportive in all the right places. No, they don’t have any electronic adjustment other than height, and rather than a simple wheel to adjust the seat back angle you have a lever, which in turn means you’ll go to make a small adjustment and end up lying down. But in a Stelvio Quadrifoglio, where you’re probably going to go for a spirited drive every now and then, the support they offer is excellent.

Secondly, they look incredible. You get other bits of carbon-fibre trim in the cabin anyway, some of which I’d rather do without, but to open the door and be greeted by those big carbon-backed seats, it makes the car really feel special. To my knowledge no other fast SUV offers anything similar.

And let’s face it, while I might need to ask for a number of loans from family members to pay for these seats, the Stelvio Quadrifoglio isn’t a cheap car anyway and it might not be such a stretch for a potential buyer. Our car, for example, has the £1,250 electrically operated sunroof and the tri-coat Trofeo White paint is £2,150. All in all, if you ticked every option on a Stelvio Quadrifoglio, you’d go from a £70,900 car to a £97,692 car.

In summary, the carbon seats look good, feel good, and if you’re going to do it, do it properly.

Photography by Pete Summers.