autos sport

Unless Alfa Romeo has a very big surprise up its sleeves (which we certainly hope so given that the brand is celebrating its 100th birthday this year...), the only new models capable of capturing our attention at the Milanese firm's Paris Motor Show booth will be the usual 'female fatales' standing alongside their automobiles.

According to the company's press release, "the stars" of the Alfa Romeo stand will be the brand-new 140 HP 2.0 JTDM and the 170 HP 1.4 MultiAir turbo petrol with "Alfa TCT" automatic transmission versions of the Giulietta.

When equipped with the new 140-horsepower 2.0-liter turbo diesel, the Giulietta hatchback returns an average fuel consumption of just 4.5lt/10km (equal to 52.3mpg US) with corresponding CO2 emissions of 119g/km.

The second new product for the Giulietta range is the introduction of a dry twin clutch automatic transmission (TCT) combined with the 170 HP 1.4-liter turbocharged gasoline engine. The same transmission will also be offered with Alfa's 170HP 2.0-liter turbo diesel.

The brand-new Alfa TCT, which was first shown on the Mito supermini, is combined with start/stop tech that helps reduce CO2 emissions to 121g/km on the gasoline model.

On an even far less interesting note, Alfa Romeo will also show a couple of MiTo sport hatches and the 2011MY versions of the 159 sedan and Sportwagon (unveiled back in May), including one dressed in "Rosso Competizione" livery and equipped with the new 136-horsepower variant of the 2.0-liter JTDM diesel engine (Euro 5).

According to Jalopnik, this here truck that's loaded with a bunch of Alfa Romeo Giulietta hatchbacks was scooped on a Michigan freeway heading towards the Chrysler Group's headquarters in Auburn Hills. Other than some vague statements and on-off promises, Fiat Group officials have not made any final announcements on the re-launch of the Alfa Romeo brand in the States. So unless the Italians are getting ready to surprise us, we'd say that these vehicles will most likely be used as press cars and/or for display purposes at dealer meetings and possibly even at upcoming motor shows.

Via: Jalopnik

To our knowledge, Alfa Romeo is not planning to introduce a crossover version of its forthcoming 149 C-Segment model. And to be honest, neither is Infomotori supporting something like this. What the Italian website is doing, is asking our opinion on whether we’d like to see Alfa Romeo creating an AWD version of the 149 hatch.

Seeing Nissan’s Euro success with the compact crossover Qashqai, we can’t find a reason to as why Alfa shouldn’t also add a model like this to its range. Maybe we’d prefer a station-wagon bodystyle than the proposed liftback model, but overall, we like the idea . –More pics after the jump

In a year’s time, most probably at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show, Alfa Romeo will unveil the successor to its 147 compact sport hatch that has been in the market since 2000 having received a facelift in 2004. The 149 will be available in 3door and 5door variants and it will compete in the premium compact hatch segment against the Audi A3 and BMW 1-Series. Using an official sketch of the 149 that Alfa Romeo released last year (see here) as a base, Italian car magazine Quattroruote created a set of renderings to give us an idea of how the sport hatch could look like.

There’s no way of telling how close the renderings are to the final product that we’ll see in 2009, but from what we’ve been told by Alfa Romeo sources, the 149 will indeed borrow several design cues from the 8c Competizione as Quattroruote’s sketches imply. -Continued