What Does The Four-Leaf Clover Badge Mean On Alfa Romeo Vehicles?

Nearly every car has a badge that conveys a sense of its identity to the mass public. They often contain the brand emblem of the relevant manufacturers, such as Ferraris with the Prancing Horse, or Toyotas with the three interlocking ovals. However, a select few among these vehicles revolve in this rarefied orbit where they receive performance enhancements or extra-special design elements. Accordingly, they are adorned with unique badging, or other identifying cues that emphasize their distinctive nature. Four-leaf clover badge-bearing Alfa Romeo models are an example of this.

In Italian, the green four-leaf clover badge is known as the "Quadrifoglio." It has its origins in the 19th century, when it was thought to bring good fortune, and became a talking point in automotive cycles starting in 1923. That was the year Italian driver Ugo Sivocci first slapped a four-leaf clover emblem on a white square background on his Alfa Romeo RL Super Sport race car as a good luck charm ahead of the Targa Florio race in Sicily. It seemed to have worked, as luck held out long enough for him to win the grueling endurance event and hand Alfa Romeo its first major international medal.

Sadly, in an unexpected twist of fate, Sivocci was killed just a few months later when his Alfa P1 test car crashed in Monza. Following Sivocci's death, Alfa Romeo adopted the four-leaf clover on all its race cars as a mark of honor, with the four-leaf clover on a triangle instead of a square. The company didn't use the badge on its road cars until the launch of the Giulia TI Super saloon in 1964 as a homologation car.

Alfa Romeo's cloverleaf badge has been applied to various models over the years. However, nowadays, it is worn by the sportiest Alfa Romeo models, such as the lightning fast Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio and Giulia Quadrifoglio to signify that they are high-performance models and to also distinguish them from their regular siblings. In both models, buyers get Alfa Romeo's 90-degree, 2.9-liter twin-turbo V6 engine under the hood, developed by Italian Gianluca Pivetti, the same engineer responsible for one of Ferrari's finest engines, the Ferrari F154.

The Alfa Romeo V6 engine produces 505 horsepower and 443 lb-ft of torque in both models, translating to a 3.6-second 0-60 mph time in the Stelvio Quadrifoglio and 3.8 seconds for the still-brisk Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio. Unfortunately, production of the high-performance Quadrifoglio models and their 2.9-liter V6 ended for the US market following the 2024 model year, with the firm reportedly putting its focus now on electrified cars. Although Alfa Romeo and Fiat North America chief, Larry Dominique (via LinkedIn) has hinted that the four-leaf clover badge could return in the future – expected to be in electrified form — but it remains to be seen whether it will follow through with the plans.