Alfa Romeo Marks Return to U.S. with Premiere of 4C at New York Auto Show

It's been a very long time in the making, but the first move to re-introduce the Alfa Romeo brand to the U.S. will take place at the New York Auto Show in April with the North American premiere of the new 4C mid-engine sports car, which was just recently displayed in roadster form at the Geneva Motor Show.

Alfa Romeo Promises Yearly Updates for the 4C, Doesn’t Rule Out Hardcore RS Model

Alfa Romeo’s flagship sports car, the 4C, will get regular updates each year to keep enthusiasm alive, the company’s marketing boss revealed.

Alfa Romeo 4C Coupé Will Be Available with Spider Headlights

Good news for Alfa Romeo 4C fans who are not delighted at all with the coupe’s controversial headlamps. Since the Geneva debut of the 4C Spider, many enthusiasts have been wondering whether the Italian carmaker will offer the more conventional lights from the drop-top model on the 4C coupe as well.

Marchionne Changes Tune on U.S. Fiat Dealers Getting Alfa 4C

When Harald Wester, boss of Fiat’s Alfa Romeo and Maserati units told reporters in September that the new Alfa 4C mid-engine sports car would likely be sold in the U.S. through Maserati's 68-strong dealer network alone instead of Fiat's 210 showrooms as well as originally suggested, he dealt a strong blow to the latter, even though they had never received a letter of intent or an outright promise from Chrysler.

Now, Chrysler-Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has come out to address these concerns by saying the plan is “the best performing Fiat dealers will be the ones that will be entitled to have a crack at Alfa Romeo distribution,” according to an Autonews report.

The issue at hand isn't as much about the 4C itself, of which only about 1,000 units are earmarked for the States, as it is for future products of Alfa and their distribution rights in the country.

For now, Fiat's U.S. dealers will have to make ends meet with whatever products they have.

“Even if we get Alfa tomorrow, we’re not going to get any volume for at least two years,” Gary Brown, chairman of the Chrysler National Dealer Council and a Fiat dealer on Long Island told Autonews. “Our game plan as Fiat dealers is to figure out how to make due with the product that we have and hopefully, there will be more Fiat product on the way in the next few years.”

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Marchionne Promises New 5-Year Plan for Alfa in 2014, RWD/AWD Architecture Under Development

Since 2004, when he became CEO of Fiat, Sergio Marchionne has put forward no less than three revival plans for Alfa Romeo. None of them really worked, so the executive has now promised a new five-year plan that will be revealed in early 2014.

“We continue to work in a pretty determined fashion in trying to reshape the Alfa Romeo platform and I think we will be in a position to outline more at the end of the first quarter of 2014,” Marchionne said during a conference call with analysts.

The five-year strategy for Fiat Group and Chrysler will most likely be revealed in late April 2014 to coincide with the automakers’ first-quarter earnings report.

As far as Alfa Romeo is concerned, the plan is centered around a new rear- and all-wheel-drive platform that is currently under development by a small team of engineers coordinated by Harald Wester, Alfa Romeo and Maserati CEO and Fiat-Chrysler's chief technical officer.

The platform is expected to underpin at least four new Alfa Romeos: the Giulia mid-sized sedan and wagon, a large flagship sedan and a mid-sized SUV. The first of these models is expected to debut in Europe in late 2015 or early 2016. All Alfa models based on this platform will be sold in the U.S. as well.

According to sources quoted by Autonews Europe, Modena-based engineers are working to make the architecture flexible enough to be used by the Chrysler and Dodge brands, more specifically the next generations of the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger sedan, as well as the replacement for the Dodge Challenger coupe.

Alfa Romeo sold 102,000 units last year, less than one-tenth as many cars as BMW and Mercedes-Benz. In the first nine months of this year, Alfa’s European sales fell 30 percent to almost 51,000 units, according to data from industry association ACEA.

By Dan Mihalascu

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Alfa Delivers First 4C Launch Editions to European Customers in Style [w/Video]

While North American consumers have been left in the dark about the arrival and pricing info on the new 4C, European customers are beginning to receive their cars.

To celebrate the delivery of the first five examples of the 4C 'Launch Edition', Alfa Romeo held a special ceremony at the Balocco Test Centre in Vercelli, Italy.

Pierluigi De Silvestro from Switzerland, Philippe Walch from France, Carlos Diniz from Germany, Aldo Mariani from the Netherlands and Stefano Zanotti from Italy, are the lucky owners of the first five of a total of 500 numbered editions earmarked for the European market.

Along with a number of Alfa officials, the Italian carmaker invited racing legend Nicola Larini who received a trophy in memory of the DTM title he won in 1993 behind the wheel of the Alfa Romeo 155 V6 Ti, which remains to this day the only 'non-German' car to have won the German touring championship.

The European 'Launch Edition' of the 4C is offered with two available liveries, the 'Alfa Red' and the matt 'Carrara White', and comes with a carbon aerodynamic kit, including headlights, spoiler and door mirror covers, to reduce weight, along with a rear aluminum extractor in a dark finish, Bi-LED headlights, and 18-inch front and 19-inch rear alloy wheels in a dark treatment.

Furthermore, the special edition sports front air intakes, brake calipers in a specific color, a racing exhaust system and suspension kit with a different calibration for shock absorbers and rear anti-roll bar, while inside, the seats and steering wheel are covered in leather and microfibre and trimmed with white or red stitching, depending on the exterior color chosen.

Mechanically, the Launch Edition features the same 236hp (240PS) 1.75-liter turbocharged engine as the regular 4Cs.

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Next Alfa Giulietta QV to Get Engine and Gearbox from the 4C, No GTA

The next generation of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Quadrifoglio Verde (QV) performance version will use the 240PS (236hp) engine from the 4C sports car. The current engine in the hot Alfa Giulietta, the 235PS (232hp) 1.75-liter turbocharged unit, is in fact the engine used by Alfa’s engineers to develop the 4C’s powerplant.

As you can see, the increase in power will not be spectacular, but Alfa Romeo says the Giulietta will gain in terms of performance and handling thanks to the engine’s lightweight aluminum build. With the new engine, the 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) time should drop from 6.8 seconds to around 6.5 seconds.

Besides the engine, the next Giulietta Quadrifoglio Verde (Cloverleaf in the UK) will also get the TCT six-speed automatic gearbox with dual dry clutch from the 4C, which will be the only transmission available. This will no doubt disappoint fans of manual transmissions.

According to an Alfa Romeo spokesman quoted by Autocar, both the engine and the gearbox will be used in their current form. By using the 4C’s engine and gearbox on other models as well, Alfa Romeo wants to build a closer connection between its mid-engined sports car and volume models.

Like the current generation, the future Giulietta Quadrifoglio Verde will be the range-topping model, as Alfa Romeo has no plans to bring back the GTA sub-brand to the C-segment in the near future. 

By Dan Mihalascu

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Scoop: Test Mule for New 2015 Mazda MX-5 and Alfa Romeo Spider

So it begins; here we have the first appearance of a test mule for the next generation of the Mazda MX-5, and consequently, the new rear-wheel drive Alfa Romeo Spider, since the two companies came together to develop the shared-platform roadsters with each model featuring its own styling and crop of engines.

Being a chopped test mule wearing body parts from the current MX-5 Mk3, there's nothing we can comment about the styling as the primary purpose of this model is to evaluate and work on the chassis and powertrain components.

Nevertheless, as pointed out by our man with the long lens, the mule appears to feature a slightly longer wheelbase and overall length than the third generation MX-5.

While it may share the same timeless looks with the original MX-5, the current model is past due for a replacement as it has been around on the market for a little over eight years now. That will likely happen sometime next year with the Alfa Romeo Spider having already been officially confirmed for 2015.

Both models will be manufactured at Mazda’s Hiroshima plant in Japan. Mazda's roadster model and possibly the replacement for the hardtop roadster-coupe, will benefit from the brand's new SKYACTIV range of petrol engines and transmissions, while chances are that the Alfa will use one or more versions of the 4C's 1.75-liter turbocharged four.

Photo Credits: CarPix for CarScoopS

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Alfa Romeo 4C's 8:04 Nürburgring Lap Run in Full

When Alfa released a short video of the new 4C completing a lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife track in eight minutes and four seconds the other day, we were left with a bitter taste in our mouths, as we wanted to see it in full. To our delight, our wish was granted with the release of a full –length video shot through an inboard camera.

The Italians said that the 4C's lap time is a record for a series production car with less than 250-horses under its hood.

To be precise, the European market specification model seen in this video piloted by former Sport Auto magazine editor Horst von Saurma, sports a 1.75-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder engine delivering 236hp (240PS) to the rear set of wheels via a TCT twin-clutch automatic transmission.

While sales of the 4C have already started in Europe, we hear that the U.S. launch has been pushed back to the second quarter of 2014.

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Watch the Alfa Romeo 4C Set its Nürburgring Lap Time of 8:04.40

Last week Alfa Romeo confirmed the 4C’s Nürburgring Nordschleife lap time of 8 minutes and 4 seconds, which is a new record for cars with engines under 250 hp. Now the Italian carmaker has released a video that includes footage from the 4C’s Nürburgring lap record. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see the entire lap, but a full on-board video will probably surface later.

Still, the 4C seems to be in its element at the 'Ring, although the car does look a little peculiar because of the black tape that was used to seal the gaps between the body panels. The exact lap time set by journalist and Nordschleife expert Horst von Saurma on September 12 is 8:04.40.

The video contains some on-board footage during which we can hear the lovely sound of the 236-hp 1.75-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder engine and we can see the Alfa Romeo 4C reaching speeds in excess of 225 km/h (140 mph).

By Dan Mihalascu

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'Spot the Differences' 2014 Alfa Romeo MiTo Priced in the UK

A lightly updated version of the Alfa Romeo MiTo with the 2014 model year moniker is now on sale in Britain with on-the-road prices starting from £14,350 for the base version with the newly introduced 104bhp (105PS) 0.9-liter turbo petrol, rising to £18,995 for the range topper Quadrifoglio sports edition with a 168bhp (170PS) 1.4-liter turbo petrol.

The new 0.9 TwinAir Turbo engine benefits from a 20hp boost in performance over the outgoing 84bhp (85PS) unit, allowing the MiTo to reach the 62mph (100km/h) in 1.1 seconds faster at 11.4 seconds. It returns a combined fuel economy figure of 67.3 mpg UK and CO2emissions of 99g/km.

Other engine options include the 1.4 TB MultiAir 133bhp (135PS) petrol, and the 1.3 JTDM-2 84bhp (85PS) and 1.6 JTDM-2 118bhp (120PS) diesels.

For the 2014MY, the MiTo gains revised interior and exterior colors, a chromed front grille, titanium grey headlamp and tail lamps surrounds, plus upgraded dashboard plastics and a new five-inch infotainment system with voice recognition.

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