Bertone Alfa Romeo Pandion Concept
Bertone
Bertones Alfa Romeo Pandion
Pininfarinas new spider
And could this be the new car in the flesh
Well here we are in Alfa Romeo’s 100th year, Alfa Romeo who for the last 100 year have brought us some of the most stunning automobile’s ever produced are set to do it again as they launch three new concept cars at the Geneva motor show as well as replacing the 147 with the brand new Giulietta (the third incarnation of the Giuletta name) this year. The three concepts are being touted as a replacement of the 159/Breara/Spider range and as such they will be one of the mainstays of Alfa Romeo’s future business. Some of you will remember that Alfa Romeo originally designed the Brera as a concept back in 2002 and that it was also first seen at the Geneva motor show. Like the original Brera these three concepts look set to use the Maserati/Ferrari V8 engine as a power plant and are likely to be a bit more off the wall than any production model that may follow, remember that when the original Brera concept was produced it had scissor doors and 400 odd bhp.
Each of the concept cars come from a different design studio with Bertone doing the coupe, one of a long line of coupe's that Bertone has styled for Alfa Romeo, Pininfarina is responsible for the spider while Italdesign Giugiaro is to style the saloon. As usual Alfa Romeo are playing the media and we are getting a slow and steady stream of "leaked" sketches and photographs just to tease us that little bit more and as you can see from the pictures accompanying this article the concepts are far from mundane, I am not sure of the rear end treatment of the Bertone design.
In a world that produces too many cars the place for Alfa Romeo in the market seems to becoming increasingly difficult to judge. The market that Alfa Romeo wants to be in is essentially dominated by BMW and in that market there are a number of boxes that need to be ticked,
1. Styling, no problem
2. Driver involvement, again no problem
3. Quality of finish, I think we have got that licked now
4. Reliability and backup.
5. Performance, there needs to be and increased awareness of weight
The other option is to market the brand against the likes of Ford and VW and this may also be an option and only time will tell which is the correct way to go.