Criminals in Italy better watch out. The Carabinieri (aka Italy’s military police force) will be roaming the streets in new patrol cars. But these aren’t just ordinary Alfa Romeos that come with the Carabinieri’s signature livery, far from it.
These specially-built Giulias are actually bullet-resistant. But just how safe are the Carabinieri while inside these bulletproof Giulias?
According to Alfa Romeo, the Giulias come with B4-level rated armor on the front windows and doors. These are enough to protect officers from bullets such as a .22 caliber up to .44 Magnum rounds. This means officers are guaranteed to be safe from pistol-wielding criminals.
Other features on the Carabinieri Giulias include emergency lights on the roof, flashing lights on the side, and LED flashers on the mirrors. Interestingly, these Carabinieri-spec Alfa Romeos can only hold one criminal per car as it only has one separate detention cell. The advantage of this, however, is that there can be a total of three police officers inside the car instead of just two.
Under the hood, all units are powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-four that makes 200 PS along with 330 Nm of torque. Power is sent to the wheels via an eight-speed automatic gearbox. This allows the Giulia to sprint from 0 – 100 km/h 6.6 seconds and hit a top speed of 230 km/h.
A total of 1,770 units of these specially-made Alfa Romeo Giulias will be delivered to the Carabinieri. There’s no word if Alfa Romeo will offer a bulletproof variant of the Giulia to the public. But considering the automaker has a discerning clientele, maybe they could make several examples for VIPs or state officials. Either that or we’ll see a bulletproof version of their SUV – the Stelvio – in the future.