If you go to www.alfaromeo.com, you’ll be invited to celebrate Alfa Romeo’s Centenary, which is officially marked today. Try to click on the “celebrate with us” button, however, and all you get is some digital smoke (bottom left) before being stranded by the side of the information superhighway. A temperamental machine? An inelegant operator? None of this matters when the view is so good. Click on “models” tab (the rest of the site works just fine) and you’ll see that, after 100 years, Alfa is still making some undeniably ache-worthy cars. The brand finds itself in an all-too familiar position: once great, and having slid languidly from grace, now in the midst of a life-or-death comeback. And though Alfa’s storyline may be familiar, its cars have always been, for better or for worse, distinctive. In this day and age, what more could a brand ask for?

Happy 100th, Bella!

The New South Wales police, who enforce Australia’s “hoon laws” should be leading by example, and driving base-engine Corollas or Cruzes. Instead they went out an splurged on an Alfa-Romeo MiTo. Top Gear reckons the choice is “unimposing.” We call it cruel and unusual.

Fiat doesn’t need other partners. We have a strong relationship with Chrysler and that is what we are actively working on

Fiat’s new Chairman, John Elkann, told shareholder’s in his family company Exor, exactly what every good, newlywed husband would say. Then again, not every husband had, shall we say, the appetite for partners that pre-Chrysler Fiat had. Just ask GM. Or BMW. Or Tata. Or Sollers. Or Zastava. Or SEAT. Or, you get the picture. Literally.

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Alfa-Romeo is turning 100 this year, and to celebrate, all the famous Italian design houses are showing their own conceptual expressions of Alfa-ness. And strangely, from Pininfarina’s buttoned-up (and bizarrely-named) 2uettottanta, to Bertone’s over-the-top Pandion, the entries thus far have felt a little… lackluster. Have Alfa’s recent problems killed the mystique? As it turns out, Pinin and Bertone were just getting us warmed up for Zagato’s stab at an Alfa tribute, this stunning TZ3 Corsa. Loosely based on 8C running gear, the TZ3 Corsa is not only an Alfa tribute, it’s also a racing special commissioned by German collector Martin Knapp, and homologated to FIA GT2 spec. Which means it doesn’t just look good. You know, TTAC’s birthday is coming up too…

The last ten years have not been kind to Fiat’s Alfa-Romeo brand, as 2009 sales levels fell to about half their 2000 volumes. Having put Alfa on “strategic review” and stuffed it into a “brand channel” with Maserati and Abarth, CEO Sergio Marchionne has had a change of heart, and is now “determined” to build the brand into a “full-line premium carmaker.” According to Automotive News [sub]’s coverage of Fiat’s five year plan presentation, that means committing to a US presence targeting 85,000 annual sales by 2014. For a sense of scale, the Alfa brand sold a grand total of 103,000 units globally last year. And Alfa is going to have to kick ass around the world to meet Sergio’s goals. By the time Marchionne expects American Alfisti to buy 85k units each year, he wants the brand’s global sales to have increased nearly five-fold to half a million units. Ambitious doesn’t even begin to describe it…

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Inspired by the Volvo-Geely deal, Automotive News Europe [sub]’s Luca Ciferri contemplates the unthinkable:

Back in 1986 Ford offered to buy nearly 20 percent of Alfa with its stake rising to 100 percent if a turnaround plan for the struggling government-owned brand succeeded…. But the venerable sports car maker is still European. Its destiny is decided in Turin. If Ford had bought Alfa, the brand probably would be now owned by a Chinese automaker…. I wonder how the Alfisti would react to the prospect of decisions on future Alfa cars being taken near Beijing. I wonder what the unions would say if they had to learn Chinese?

Well Luca, infamous Italian xenophobia aside, perhaps the better question would be could Alfa really be any worse off than it currently is? If the brand manages to survive the year under its blessedly Italian leadership, it will be lumped into a GM-style “brand channel” and its new products will be based on Chrysler’s leftovers. Oh, and there’s no guarantee that it will survive its “strategic review” at all, as Fiat has said there’s a chance that Alfa won’t survive past another year. So who knows, maybe the Chinese will end up with Alfa sooner than Ciferri might imagine.

Alfa Romeo has launched an official fine art collection, which can be found at www.alfaromeoart.com. With their gracious permission, we bring you this selection of some of the luscious images now on sale there. Too bad none of them answer any of the pressing questions facing Alfa today.

With all the drama surrounding Alfa Romeo’s future, it’s heartening to see that the brand is still taking the time to work on core competencies like the emotional drop-top two-seater. Nobody knows for sure if Alfa will survive past the end of this year, but if they do, this is probably how they should celebrate. Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has been urging Alfa to “find religion,” and soon… happily, the 2uettottanta Concept sure looks like the work of true believers. With just a little Pontiac Solstice thrown in for good measure.

Fiat/Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne seems ever more committed to the idea of bringing the Alfa Romeo brand to the United States, telling Automotive News [sub]:

I’m a lot more confident now that Alfa Romeo will reconstitute a product offering that is acceptable globally, and more in particular in the United States and Canada. There is a strong likelihood that the brand will be back here within the next 24 months

[Note: A significantly expanded and updated version of this article can be found here]

That air presented the greatest obstacle to automotive speed and economy was understood intuitively, if not scientifically since the dawn of the automobile. Putting it into practice was quite another story. Engineers, racers and entrepreneurs were lured by the potential for the profound gains aerodynamics offered. The efforts to do so yielded some of the more remarkable cars ever made, even if they challenged the aesthetic assumptions of their times. We’ve finally arrived at the place where a highly aerodynamic car like the Prius is mainstream. But getting there was not without turbulence. (Read More…)

Alfa has rekindled its long lost love with a mature lady: Aunt America.

Last December, Cammy Corrigan reported on TTAC that there are “very important opportunities for Alfa Romeo in the United States.” At least in the eyes of Luca di Montezemolo, Chairman of Fiat. Despite being the object of unconditional admiration of Alfa-crazed owners, commonly known as “Alfisti,” Fiat’s sporty brand has reportedly lost €200m-€400m per year for the last decade. So something needs to be done.

“Andiamo a America,” appears to be la soluzione in Torino. Reuters reports that “Alfa Romeo is likely to return to North America by 2012 after a 15-year hiatus.”  Alfas were last sold in America in 1995. (Read More…)

Today’s tester is a Red Alfa Romeo. So I really shouldn’t be telling you how its name is derived from the cities of Milano and Torino. I shouldn’t be revealing that it’s based on the Fiat Punto and I really needn’t elaborate about its underhood gadgetry, because in days of yore, “Red” was all you needed to know about an Alfa Romeo. On the other hand, to paraphrase Dylan, things have changed.
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The search for “potential synergies” between Alfa Romeo and Maserati has already yielded its first bitter fruits, as Auto Motor und Sport reports that a special edition Alfa will be built as a loaner for Maserati owners who bring their cars in for service. Because there’s nothing Sergio Marchionne can’t fix with a special edition…

Chrysler/Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has a handful of brand management on his plate, as he aligns his two firms for the future. Merging Lancia and Chrysler was an obvious move; creating one full-line brand (albeit with different names from market to market) is a lot better than trying to keep two distinct brands, although even with their powers combined, Chrysler/Lancia is going to have an uphill struggle. With Lancia “taken care of,” the biggest problem on Fiat’s plate is Alfa Romeo, which has reportedly lost €200m-€400m per year for the last decade.

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Cross-cultural alliances are the craze of the moment in the auto industry, particularly in the form of Europeans hooking up with Japanese partners. Renault & Nissan, PSA & Mitsubishi, Volkswagen & Suzuki and Bertel Schmitt & Tomoko (sorry, couldn’t resist it!) are just a few examples. Fiat, on the other hand, is not following the crowd. Moneycontrol.com reports that Luca di Montezemolo, Chairman of Fiat, is saying no ad un socio giapponese. “The others are doing what we have (already) done,” Montezemolo says. “This is a time when we have to be careful not get indigestion.” Is the Chrysler merger not sitting well on the stomach?

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