BETTER BY DESIGN

Elegant beauty is a crucial aspect of Alfa Romeo's revival plan. Richard Bremner meets its design director ILLUSTRATION BEN SUMMERELL-YOUDE 

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a Ifa Romeo's fresh range of cars, to be launched at one-year intervals from 2023, are intended to trigger "a visceral wow effect", says design director Alejandro MesoneroRomanos. They will be "bold, assertive and sculptural" and some "will be pretty shocking".

The new line-up will comprise five mainstream models, ranging from an unusual replacement for the Giulia saloon to a flagship SUV and a small SUV to sit beneath the new Tonale. And amid this mainstream, volume and revenue-generating plan are ambitions for several specialty models intended to restore Alfa's reputation for glamorous cars.

The first of these specialties will appear as soon as 2023, when a highend sports car concept that Alfa boss Jean-Philippe Imparato describes as "exciting, selective and expensive" appears. This is strongly rumoured to draw inspiration from the Tipo 33 cars of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

At the recent Le Mans Classic, Stellantis boss Carlos Tavares drove a 33/2 Daytona race car the basis for the road-going 33 Stradale, considered by many the most beautiful Alfa ever, a mere 18 examples of which were produced.

The concept is believed to be a warm-up to the real thing, which should appear by 2025 at the very latest, because it's expected to be purely petrol-powered, and this date is when all Alfas will come with only electrified powertrains.

Sibling brand Maserati's new MC20, a mid-engine sports car, is a potentially excellent basis for the new 33. It is the right size, and has a carbonfibre core, scissor doors and a chassis developed to very high standards. Alfa's job would be to reskin it, and perhaps replace Maserati's Nettuno V6 with its own V6, used by the Quadrifoglio variants of the Giulia and Stelvio.