Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint
There could be a new Alfasud on the way, according to this week's Autocar. Although only at the planning stage, the reports talks of a speech made by Fiat chairman Sergio Marchionne in which he revealed that Alfa Romeo is considering unearthing plans for a new, sporty compact car -- the Alfasud could be reborn.
A company with more than its fair share of troubles due to low sales -- though no lack of new and exciting ideas -- Alfa Romeo believes there's potential for a car that competes directly with the next generation Mini, which is due in 2006.
However, it's more than just thin air. Students at Turin's Institute of Applied Arts and Design have been commissioned to produce quarter-scale models of potential designs. The new small Alfa would be a bit bigger, said the report, at four metres long rather than the Mini's 3.7 metres. And the chassis could handle up to 200bhp, making it a pretty potent device.
Other niches Alfa is looking at are the Golf segment -- here be dragons, surely, especially since Alfa doesn't have an obvious platform with which to compete with upmarket hatches such as the Audi A3, BMW 1-series and the Golf, although it could be based on the Brera's shorter-wheelbase underpinnings.
The report also suggests that Alfa may be working on a more upmarket car to replace the 166. If made, the new 169 will look, apparently, a bit like the Mercedes CLS four-door coupé -- if that's not a contradiction in terms.
![](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 4 3"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1 1"%3E%3C/svg%3E)