Alexandre
Alfa Romeo surprised the automotive world by unveiling its new supercar, the 33 Stradale. This exceptional car is only the first in a series of limited-edition models.which will be offered to the most demanding and affluent collectors.
The Bottega program, which means "workshop" in Italian, is an initiative of the brand with the cloverleaf, which aims to offer customers unique, customized carsthat reflect their personalities. Each Bottega car will be designed and produced alongside the production cars of the future Alfa Romeo range, in collaboration with the Centro Stile Alfa Romeo.
The 33 Stradale is the first car in the Bottega program. It is inspired by the legendary 33 Stradale of the 60s, which was considered the most beautiful car in the world. It uses the same 3-liter, twin-turbo V6 engine as the Maserati MC20, the Stellantis Group's other supercar.
But the 33 Stradale won't be the only car in the Bottega program. According to Alfa Romeo CEO Jean Philippe Imparato, there will be other limited-edition cars, to be unveiled over the next few years. "In November, we'll already start working on the next one," Alfa Romeo design manager Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos told the Quattroruote journalist.
It's easy to imagine that the next limited-edition model will be designed by the Centro Stile Alfa Romeo, with the Bottega program, will be a Spider. In fact, the 33 Stradale is based on the Maserati MC20, which has its own convertible version with sunroof, the MC20 Cielo. The Alfa Romeo 33 Spider could be based on the MC20 Cielo. We could see this 33 Spider in late 2024.
The Bottega program is a unique opportunity for collectors and lovers of exceptional cars, who will be able to acquire limited edition Alfa Romeo supercars. "The brand's history is an inexhaustible source of inspiration," adds Jean-Pierre Ploué, Head of Brand Design at Stellantis. These cars bear witness to the expertise and excellence of the Alfa Romeo brand, which aims to position itself as a player in the luxury car sector.
In the sports car sector.
For the rest, it's great news and should do the same for the Granturismo and Grancabrio, as well as for Maserati, Lancia and Abarth.
In fact, that's where Fiat would have started back then, with these 4 brands.
"Welcome to the underpenny game!
At 2 million euros a unit, it's a luxury car. A sports car is a 4C. A Giulia quadrifoglio.
Ok, you compare the status to its price but if tomorrow Lotus brings out a full carbon Emira with 800hp with 5 examples at 1.5 million, you place it in the luxury cars?
Exactly, you have premium, luxury, ultra luxury and it's all linked to price. You can have a sports car at any price.
I didn't know this classification because the only one I was taught was:
Generalists
Premium
Prestige
Luxury
Sport
Your classification is good except that it lacks ultra luxury and sport that can go into several categories...
What do you call ultra-luxury because Luxury already covers brands like Royce au or Bentley, Mabaych, Century or Aurus and other customized products like Touring preparations on Maserati.
Special series like the 33 Stradale are good for image, but ordinary people would also like more affordable Alfa Romeos with Alfa Romeo DNA, design, character and real engines, and not a declination of Stellantis products from Peugeot.
Except that in this case, it owes nothing to Peugeot or Stellantis, given that the basis is the Italian 100%. Ordinary mortals would like to see the brand regain its rightful place at the very top of the conventional sports car list, and for that it's better to start with limited series than abominations like the de suvs (Tonale and Baby SUV) which are the antithesis of the brand.
I think you're overestimating a good part of the public's expectations. Without the Netflix series, young people would have turned away from F1 in droves, and are probably completely unaware of the Alfa Romeo brand. Meanwhile, BMW is working on its future 1300 hp M3...
I think you're underestimating the expectations of Alfa purists. As for the new clientele, don't be fooled, because many young people are interested in the brand and have discovered it through their friends and family, and above all through a medium that is fantastic for this... Youtube. I don't know if the Netflix series you're talking about really works in Europe, from what I've been told people watched it the first year and were disappointed with the content.
The Drive to Survive series has had a huge impact on the rejuvenation of F1's audience, as evidenced by the doubling of commercial revenues and an increase in attendance from 260,000 to over 400,000 between 2018 and 2021, as well as educating the US public about the discipline, hence the arrival of single-seaters in Miami. This opens up great prospects for commercial development (provided you stay in F1 and invest massively), but you still need to have products to sell. Not everyone has $2 million to spend on a supercar, and you can't limit production to a few dozen units a year. I've always criticized the previous management for wanting to sell to hypothetical Chinese customers while abandoning its existing (European) customers, and I wouldn't be any more tender with your direction...
and I wouldn't be any more tender with yours, which has been a method that has brought nothing but failures for the last few decades under the Italian state, then when Fiat took over and didn't know what to do with it, as they did with Lancia (it's fair to say that even though the Giulia and Stelvio arrived 10 years late, they have restored the brand's reputation like never before, just like the 8C and 33), and this method can be explained in one sentence:
"It's not the fall that's hardest, it's the landing!"
Lancia is on the verge of permanent collapse.
the 155/164/145/146 series was a failure:
Loss of former German and Japanese customers and discontinuation of Flat 4.
The 156/166/147 campaign was a semi-failure:
Unanimously (customers and journalists), nobody understood why the Q4 system was not offered from the outset, which would have boosted sales (and not just diesel sales), and why it was only offered at the end of the car's career, even though it is a derivative of the 155 Q4 system, itself derived from that of the Delta. Discontinuation of the Arese V6, which could have continued in production for several more years (and Marchionne had the validation of the direct injection system presented in the 3.6 discontinued, to be replaced by the future GM dung). Completely failed evolution of the 2.0 Twin Spark into the 2.0 JTS, which damaged Alfa's image as an engine manufacturer with all its recurring problems, not to mention its catastrophic 5-speed gearbox and auto (I'm in a good position to know because I've got the last GT 2.0 from Switzerland with a manual gearbox and 76,540 km and the list of the number of parts changed is enormous and it's still broken down, and the 5-speed gearbox is a disaster). What's more, there was virtually no evolution of the entire range during their marketing.
The 159/Brera/Giulietta/Mito series was another failure.
So even if the Giulia, Stelvio, 4c, RZ and SZ didn't sell as many models as expected, they did restore the company's reputation.
as for the series on F1, you're probably right because I can't talk about it, I've never watched a single show. It's just that the F1 old-timers thought it was more about the bling than anything else (a bit like the articles about certain drivers having their watches stolen or if they've changed girlfriends... a bit like voici or Paris Match F1 version.
The average person didn't rush out to buy the Giulia, which is a very good car. The Alfa brand is disliked by the average consumer, and the figures prove it: they even prefer to buy a 3008 🙄
The Giulia was partly designed for the average person, and was released too late.
Just look at BMW customers, who prefer to buy SUVs rather than sedans, and the same goes for Mercedes. And I'm not talking about Audi, which is doing away with the A8 and will soon draw a line under the A6 because these sedans aren't selling, and Mercedes is reducing its sedan and saloon range to the bare minimum, and so is BMW, Mercedes and Lexus still sell as many sedans as they do, it's thanks to China, which is a huge market for Lancia and Maserati, but not for Alfa, and never will be.
A brand image takes a long time to build up, so it's important to accompany and renew models over the long term, rather than constantly changing them. Of course, Alfa Romeo will never be a mainstream manufacturer, but a premium sports car, which narrows the customer base (and certainly excludes the "average consumer"). The brand must have fans, not consumers, and to achieve this it must offer specific driving sensations and styling: direct, straightforward steering, pure rear-wheel drive by default, grand touring ambience in the entry-level range, fluid shapes that are immediately recognizable and remarkable.
For Lancia's brand image, yes, because it was destroyed by Marchionne with his made-up American models and Fiat with its generalist products priced at 3 francs 6 cents. In the case of Alfa and Maserati, it's less complicated, just that for Maserati they shot themselves in the foot for not releasing the Alfieri and making the MC20 an annual limited series, and for not upgrading the Ghibli, Quattroporte and Levante and the Granturismo, I'll give you that, and Alfa has missed out on a station wagon, a duetto, a top-of-the-range sedan and the SUV that goes with it, an Artega-type coupé and more consistent evolutions of the 4c, Giulia and Stelvio, I'll give you that too.
To restore Lancia's image as a vehicle, the new stratos is an essential first step.
Bravo Stanislas. Your comment is admirable. This is exactly what alfists are calling for, a return to Alfa Romeo's DNA, the one that generated such beautiful cars at reasonable prices and with fantastic engines.
If I've understood correctly, the pundits at Stellantis have decreed that Alfa Romeo will be the car of the super-rich. So the poor and the middle class will no longer have the right (and the pleasure) to drive an Alfa Romeo. How sad! I've just bought a crappy 147 for 3,000 euros. That's all we have to do, dear friends, to continue enjoying the pleasure of driving an Alfa!
You want an Alfa with an exemplary finish, a fantastic platform, fantastic engines and fantastic handling, but you want to pay more for it than for a Tipo... at some point you have to be consistent.
A Mazda 3 is designed and assembled in one of the richest countries in the world, Japan. Its chassis is excellent, its lines well thought-out, and it's one of the most beautiful compact sedans of recent years (it's won awards for this). The interior finish is top-notch - soundproofing is excellent - even in the entry-level range, and with a 2.0L Skyactiv 122 hp engine it starts at 27,300 euros in France... Its 150 hp version costs 1,000 euros more. All we're asking for is a pretty sedan with clean, identifiable lines (the reference to the 147 is no coincidence) like the Gloria concept, rear-wheel drive with good weight distribution and Alfa-style steering. The engine has to be reliable and invigorating (unlike the Mazda), and the gears not too long. For the interior, there's no need for a double 12-inch screen with the latest Qualcomm chip and 50 driving aids (at least for the lower end of the range); it's better to concentrate on materials and seating, with a wide choice of colors. At around 35,000 euros, it's largely possible... Why not a five-cylinder Firefly with simple hybridization? And assembled in Italy, thank you.
The low-pressure system in the Mazda engine means that it's no longer possible to have a naturally aspirated engine, or else you'll need a supercharged K20C engine, which will prevent it from being sold in Europe because of the Malus.
Secondly, which chassis should be used to make a compact rear-wheel drive? The Giorgio? They keep telling us it's incompatible. So unless we come up with a new, safe platform, we'll have to make it profitable with how many... 2 models? The Delta and the Giulietta? 150hp? While an Abarth exceeds them and already costs 30,000€ or more?
"Welcome to BisounoursLand!"🤣
If you want a Mito or a Giulietta... you'll get a made-up Peugeot... period!!!!
You can fill the gap left by an atmo engine with an electric motor and a small battery charged by the combustion engine... It's possible, but you have to want it and believe in it. As for the Giorgio platform, it's totally compatible, we're just told that it's too expensive for Alfa (or that the margin isn't sufficient according to the financial department) and that it's therefore reserved for Maserati or electric models. Even the Tonale could work on this principle of an electric motor on the rear axle (as already in place with the Q4 system) with range extender, at least we'd have propulsion... the rechargeable battery for 50kms is completely idiotic, it adds unnecessary weight and it's not efficient. Similarly, we're tinkering with a light hybrid with Punch, which assumes apathetic behavior and barely reduces fuel consumption.
Last time I checked, this wasn't the case, since the Ghibli's 4-cylinder hybrid didn't fit inside.
"You can more than make up for the hollow in an atmo engine with an electric motor and a small battery charged by the combustion engine... It's possible, but you have to want it and believe in it."
This system was implemented in the Karma in the early 2000s, and showed a lot of failures over time... so they didn't take up the concept again, but there's a good reason. Over time, there's a problem of coherence between the combustion engine, which is there to recharge the battery in part.
Didn't they bring out the brand-new in-line 6-cylinder that the Americans were taking advantage of for reasons of pollution and the impossibility of selling it in Europe, and now they're bringing out a 5-cylinder (there's no engine more difficult to balance (Audi, Seat, Fiat, Ford, Lancia, Volvo... etc, have all paid the price)? And how would they mount it? Transversally (a disaster in terms of weight distribution and considerable turning radius)?
I don't think the number of cylinders will change anything, as Honda has shown that 4-cylinders are far more convincing and efficient than cumbersome 5-cylinders.
Ok, limited series that make history like 8c, zagato, disco volante and now 33 stradale are beautiful, they make you dream, they'll go down in the history books... but we'd also like to see, if possible, a Giulia revival, a Giula sw, a stelvio revival, and please, the return of the Mito and Giuletta!!! If possible, avoid rebadging Dodge or Chrysler... Lancia type...
Since no one will want to spend crazy amounts of money on Giuliettas and Mito's, these will be clones, nothing more.
Limited and exclusive series based on Maserati clones, a Tonale clone that has little of the brand's DNA, seriously, what kind of image and clientele is Alfa Romeo aiming for? Sergio Marchionne's disastrous management at FCA was rightly criticized, but frankly, Stellantis and his French managers are no better...
I'd say it's definitely looking up now.