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Fiat CEO, Segio Marchionne, has put the rumor of VW buying over Alfa Romeo to rest for now. Alfa will officially stay under its Italian parent's wing at the moment as Marchionne attempts to revive the ever-struggling Italian luxury automaker. It is estimated that Fiat loses over $400 Million a year because of the upscale brand. Marchionne says Alfa will have to move 300,000 units annually to be profitable. For the record, Alfa is on pace for ~105,000 units this year, and Marchionne wants to hit 500,000 units by 2014 with the help of new models and entry into the US market around 2012. If plans to enter the US market do materialize, America should get some cars that will compete with BMW. That means in addition to the entry-level Giulietta, US should get the mid-size Giulia luxury car to take on the 3-Series, a larger 169 based on Chrysler's RWD platform, and possibly a small soft-roader to compete with the X1 and X3. Before any of the above happens, its shareholders will soon have to make a very important decision of investing $2 billion to pull Alfa Romeo back from the brink or ditch it and regroup.

One of the most bizarre stories to surface recently is that the Volkswagen Group (VW) is seriously interested in buying Alfa Romeo from Fiat S.p.A (Fiat). This rumor surfaced sometime last week where two unnamed VAG executives had stated that the group was interested in Alfa Romeo. In the bid to become the largest automotive manufacturer in the world, or in other words, trying to usurp Toyota from the throne, VW is still on a buying warpath. Hence the supposed need for another car brand like Alfa Romeo. Of course, Fiat did not take the rumors sitting down and has stated that the company has no intention of selling Alfa Romeo and is sticking to their turnaround plan for the brand that was announced by the Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne in April of this year. He had stated that Alfa will be a full line premium manufacturer and they plan to ramp up sales from 102,000 units in 2009 to around 500,000 units by 2014. Ambitious numbers nonetheless. Anyway, these industry rumors are really far fetched sometimes. VW CEO Martin Winterkorn had stated in April that VW was in the midst of taking over Porsche and is not planning to add another brand at the moment. VW also recently concluded the purchase of Italian Automotive Design firm Giugiaro and Winterkorn also said that VW

Lets talk about Magneti Marelli for a moment. Magneti Marelli, is an Italian electronics company under Fiat that manufacturers OEM car parts like ECUs, meter clusters, headlights, ignition systems, sparkplugs and so on for the Fiat group and other car brands as well. Magneti Marelli was the company Ferrari went to get its hybrid KERS or kinetic energy recovery system system for the Ferrari 599 Hy-KERS concept car and had also collaborated with other large car manufacturers like Ford (together with Microsoft) for their Sync and Blue & Me in car computer system. The company is so big that they claim to have at least one part bearing their name or design in every car on the market. Anyway, they've decided to become ever so slightly bigger. This time Magneti Marelli has decided to enter the tuning car market by launching their tuning division. Their first victim, er, model for Magneti Marelli Elaborazioni is the Alfa Romeo MiTo, and they call it the MiTo

Alfa Romeo recently unveiled 2 new variants of the Brera and Spider models in the UK, namely the 1750 TBI petrol and the 2.0 JTDM diesel. Both the engines are turbocharged, with the petrol and diesel versions generating 200hp and 170hp respectively. The 1750 TBi generates 320Nm of torque, propelling the Brera from zero to 100km/h in 7.7 seconds. In the Spider, it takes 0.1 second slower but is still impressive considering that it is a cabriolet. Top speed for both models is 235 km/h. The 2.0 liter JTDM diesel unit pumps out 360Nm of torque, allowing the Brera to hit 100 km/h in 8.8 seconds. The diesel powered Spider does the century sprint in 9.0 seconds and reaches a top speed of 217 km/h, a similar figure for the Brera. At the same time, the UK division also revealed a new trim line called the Italia Independent, available with all engine options including the ones above. The trim level includes a matt black titaniuim finish, 18-inch black alloys that hide red brake calipers as well as an Alfa 8C inspired aluminium fuel cap. On the inside, one can find black leather bound steering wheel, gear knob with red stitching and black sports leather seats with Italia Independent branding on the headrests. There are also carbon-fibre trim inserts, aluminium sports pedals and foot rest as well as an audio plus navigation unit. Let

This here is the Alfa Romeo Giulietta that will serve as this year's safety car at the SBK World Superbike Championship. It is based on the range-topping Giulietta Quadrifoglio Verde that's motivated by a 1.75-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine pumping out 235 horsepower. That's good enough to propel the standard production car from zero to 100km/h (62mph) in 6.8 seconds with a top speed of 242 km/h or 151 mph. Alfa Romeo has not released any specific details on the safety car version of the Giulietta QV but aside from the special lights, we can assume that it will get all the usual safety car gadgets such as radio-equipment and monitors.

Alfa Romeo appears to be on a celebration spree this year. Aside from the year-long festivities to commemorate the firm's 100th birthday, the Italian automaker is now celebrating the 60th anniversary of its historic 1-2-3 finish at the first ever F1 European Championship race, which was held at Silverstone motor racing circuit sixty years ago. To celebrate, the company photographed one of the rare 158s, which competed in this historic race alongside the latest Alfa to bear the motorsport inspired Cloverleaf badge, the MiTo QV sport hatch. The company said that the image of the 158 and the MiTo will join others from owners past and present at the dedicated site "alfacentenary.co.uk" in a "visual celebration" of Alfa's 100th anniversary. The F1 racer's name was derived from its engine -"15" for the displacement of 1.5-liters and "8" for 8-cylinders. It made its racing debut in 1937 but because of the war, it spent several years dismantled and hidden in various places such as an Italian cheese factory. After the war, the 158 returned to the racing track to secure victory in every Formula One race in which it competed during the inaugural 1950 session. Overall, the Alfa 158 and its derivative, the 159, dominated the Formula One calendar over the next few years with 47 wins from 54 Grand Prix entered.

As part of the activities marking the brand's 100th anniversary, the Italian Alfa Romeo Register (RIAR) is organizing an international rally for all Alfa Romeo enthusiasts worldwide. The event, officially supported by Alfa Romeo, will take place on 26 (Saturday) and 27 (Sunday) June in Milan, the city where the brand was founded on 24 June 1910. Alfa Romeo aims to gather more than 3000 names for this event and said that the participants will parade their cars through the streets in the center of Milan on the afternoon of 26 June. The following day on the morning of 27 June, all participants will take part in a record breaking display by forming a long line of Alfa Romeos, all bearing the characteristic "Biscione" emblem on the roof. A statue donated by RIAR and enthusiasts worldwide will be presented during a special ceremony. The statue, said to be inspired by the iconic Alfa Romeo 1900 Disco Volante, is designed by Centro Stile Alfa Romeo in collaboration with artist Agostino Bonalumi. Those interested in taking part in the two-day event can register at www.alfisti.com and fill in the form in the Centenary section.

I love Alfa Romeo. Every time I see one passing by I will always do another take at it as these cars ooze character from every body panel. The first time I sat in an Alfa I was very, very young. This was sometime in the early '80s. My uncle had a Alfa Giulia 1300 super and it was an awsome looking car. It looked nothing like the square boxes that most sedans looked like during that period and it sounded totally throaty every time my uncle blipped the throttle. Nowadays, Alfas sound a little subdued, but they still ooze character from every panel as they are like a nicely fitted Italian suit. Even though some days you have to pray whether the Alfa would function perfectly instead of some electrical gremlin or some mechanical anomaly that would suddenly plague it for no apparent reason. So I recently drove the Alfa Romeo Mito. In terms of looks and styling this car is a successful mix of retro and modern touches. It is a premium 3 door supermini based on the Fiat Punto Grande chassis. It is designed to compete with the BMW Mini, the soon to be released Audi A1 and somewhat with its Fiat group stablemate, the Fiat 500. According to most people, the styling is derived from the limited run Alfa Romeo 8c Competizione. To me it looks pretty successful, especially when you pair it with either a red car, black dashboard and tan seats or a white car, black dashboard and ox-blood coloured leather seats. Both on Alfa telephone dial style 17 inch rims and it looks like a million dollars. That being said, only Italians design with such flair and it shows in the Mito. It looks good for such a small car. Now after ogling at its looks you get inside the car and find that it looks pretty sensible. There is a key which you use to turn the engine on. No start button or keyless fob but your basic key. You adjust the seat and steering (which only adjusts for height and not for reach) and then find out that it is pretty decent. No ergonomic errors (long armed short legs driving position) like in some Alfas of old. There is enough headroom for six footers in the Mito and everything seems to be in the correct position for spirited driving. There is also dual zone climate controls. But in a car this small, it is a little redundant as it seems too small to use split air-conditioning. Of course, spec-junkies would like this fact. The material used for the interior is a mix of leather for the seats, steering wheel and the plastics used are of higher than usual quality found it your average supermini. But, that being said, I find the interior only slightly more upmarket than the Punto Grande which the car is based on. The point here is that after the stunning exterior, you only get a decent interior. Of course this isn't as bad as you think. As being a supermini and not a luxury GT it is still built to a price point. Now we come to the all important fact of driving the Mito. This is where it goes downhill. According to the specs sheet the car I drove had the 1.4 turbo charged 4 cylinder with 155ps and 230nm of torque driving through a 6 speed manual gearbox. A Q2 torsen based limited slip differential is there to help out this Front Wheel Drive car in corners and on acceleration. The usual ABS, EBD and stability control functions are also included in the car. It also has a DNA switch, D stands for dynamic, N for normal and A for All Weather. This adjusts the throttle and steering responses of the Mito. So with all of these tech and driver's aid, it drives terribly. Terribly? Yes, that's what I said. I started in normal mode and basically found the steering pretty fast in that N (normal) mode but too light to my liking. The throttle response was decent but one surprising thing was that on a sweeping downhill off cambered corner it felt unnerving as the tail felt like it was ready to pitch me and its tail into oncoming traffic. I was going at 80km/h at the time and I basically flicked the steering wheel like I usually did on most of the cars and it wanted to oversteer due to the quick steering response. But this was in N mode. I was expecting quicker steering in the Dynamic (D) mode and was slightly surprised by its behaviour. After few more kilometers in N, I switched to D, and upon accelerating you could feel the electric steering weighting down a little and the throttle response much more frantic. In this mode things are still not much better. The reason for this is that while throttle response is good, meaning that the engine lets loose all of its 155ps sooner than in the other modes (0-100km/h in 8 secs), and its steering is faster than before it still feels unsorted. It was so unsorted through another downhill sweeping corner in 5th gear at around 100km/h that I was left in disbelief. The car understeered worse than a normal Suzuki Swift would and the fact that it had an LSD (the Q2 system), and large (for its size) 215/40/17 tires on the car made the experience even more disappointing. It could be because I should have been on 4th, but again, in some of the cars I have driven heavy understeer wouldn't have happened at that speeds. It could be the stability control kicking in too early. But this surely distracts from the driver having any driving pleasure. It made 155ps feel so uncontrollable. Never had 155ps and 230 Nm felt like it was so ready to overwhelm its chassis. You would never find a problem like this in a Swift Sport (sublime chassis control) or even the Alfa 147 (which rolls in corners but doesn't do understeer like the Mito at the same speeds) or on any 200bhp front wheel drive Audi/VW. So after using two of the three settings, I find out that it may oversteer without your knowledge but it also may understeer like crazy So I ended up trying the A (All weather) mode for the final few kilometers. Somehow I liked this setting. The steering feels nicely weighted (like in D mode) and the throttle subdued like the N mode. This somehow makes the car seem decent. As if this setting is meant to extract the most grip from the chassis, even though it only changes throttle and steering settings. The car seems most settled here and this is the setting I'd use most of the time if I bought it, or till I really get used to the car's idiosyncrasies. Of course if you're a decent, read as slow most of the time, driver then the Mito would be good for you. Cruising down Orchard Road or the Marina area it'll play its part as a stunning picture perfect little car. Cruising down the North South Highway it'll also play its part as a long distance tourer as it does not have a rock hard ride and the engine is pretty subdued most of the time (not as gruff as Alfas of old or even the 1.6 in the old 147 but due to it being a turbocharged engine, it is quieter as the turbo drowns out most of the exhaust note). After driving the car I was disappointed. It looked fabulous, but it drives like someone suffering from bi-polar disorder. At one time it wants to kill me at low speeds, the other time it doesn't want to kill me at high speeds. It cannot make up its mind on whether it wants to be sporting or not. So in conclusion, it is beautiful to look at, bi-polar to drive and because of this fact it is still an Alfa , a flawed gem. Maybe too flawed for me to actually yearn for it. So if I was looking for a small supermini, I may go for the Mini Cooper S or the cheaper Suzuki Swift Sport. What can I say? I'm a handling freak and this car does not give me my daily dose of it.

Ah, the 166, 164, 155, 75, 159, 147, 33..... All of these are numbers that actually relate to models of Alfa Romeo. I love Alfas, in one form or the other they stir something deep down in me. No, not my loins but a certain flutter in the heart, my knees go weak and my head goes light. The feeling is somewhat similar to being in love I suppose, or the feeling you would have if either Eva Longoria or Mila Jovovich just passed you by and flirted at you. But somehow these were cars that were designated mere numerals and this fact somehow does not dilute the Alfa Romeo passion in most of us. Even if we cannot bring ourselves to rush out and buy one. But things are getting better, Alfa Romeo is going back to the good ol' days of the 1960s and 1970s where they named most of their cars. Its not like it has been an Alfa habit to either name or number their cars. While we are aware that some of the classics like the 8c 2600 models from the 1930s or the Tipo 33 models were basically model numbers. But somehow cars with names seem more magnificent. Imagine the words 'Alfa Romeo Brera' rolling off the tip of your tongue or 'Alfa Romeo Giulietta'. Say it with an Italian accent and it sounds spectacular. Another non-Alfa example that makes the most sense in proving this argument is that other Italian car company called Maserati. The word 'Quattroporte' sounds exotic but all it means is 'four doors' yet it sounds like something epic. Yet if it were an American or an English manufacture, I strongly state that if Alfa named their cars 'Rufus', 'Chuck', 'Blair' or 'Mortimer' things would be so different, and really horrific. And maybe this is why Alfa is going back to using names for their latest models. The Brera was the first of the newly named Alfas and this was followed by the MiTO and now the new Giulietta, which is the Alfa 147 replacement. The Giulietta looks fresh in a retro sort of way and looks like no other hatchback in the market. Much like the the newly launched smaller MiTO model and also the Giulietta predecessor, the 147 when it was first launched. Which brings me to the 147, the last Alfa I had driven. The 147 was indeed a worthy Alfa due to the fact that it had pretty nice engines, 1.6liters right up to the GTA with that 3.2liter engine which must have been a real beast to drive. The metallic grey 147 (much like the picture) I drove had a 1.6 liter twin spark and a 5 speed manual transmission. It was a pre-facelift model without the 159 style tweaks. While it is a front wheel drive, it still could make me feel good after driving it. Maybe its the badge on the steering wheel. Or the fact that during sharp corners it responded in a dutiful, predictable way with the steering giving good if not great feedback from the road. If you were to really fling it into a corner it may not be the final word in precision due to some front wheel scrabbling when you're exiting the corner but that does add to the drama and fun. But while most front drivers also do that, when you add a sonorous twin spark sound to the picture it gets even better that usual. Not biblical or epic like but good enough for the average Joe. While the sound is pretty muted from inside the cabin and I wished for something louder, not many in-line 4 cylinders sound like an Alfa 4 cylinder. Oh yeah, the seats were pretty good with support in the right places and none of that infamous long armed, short legged Italian driving position we've all heard of. Now don't ask me about rear legroom or rear head room or any of that sort; it's an Alfa, and I was driving it. That's all that matters. It is a flawed gem. The reason I say this is because the ride was decent, the handling predictable, steering precise with some feel to it and the engine good to listen to when you want it to sing. The interior needs help. The gearshift felt like a Datsun 120y. It was loose and slightly vague. I dont know whether the one I tried had a tired gear change and the owner didn't fix it or whether it was a natural 147 character flaw. Also parts of the armrest felt like melted sticky plastic, most probably melted due to the hot, humid South East Asian weather. The gearshift I can live with, as we humans tend to get used to something (even something bad) after a while. I actually got used to the gearshift after awhile. And maybe I could live with the slightly sticky plastic. Heck, whatever I complained was actually forgotten when I started the car and drove off. Condemning the 147 for the details above would be like kicking out a certain beauty queen from a swimsuit competition instead of a competition that required her to speak English. This is because the main points of enjoying an Alfa are the soul, character and a sense of occasion it has that is built around its engine, chassis and heritage; and not marred by wonky gearshifts or bad plastic. So in conclusion, the Alfa 147 is a flawed gem that should be remembered by all. Of course, if this were something Korean, Chinese or Malaysian, we might simply call it rubbish. Now aren't Alfa Romeos great?

On 3 Jan 2010, there was a special section on The Straits Times featuring cars that will arrive in Singapore during 2010. I was abit disappointed not to see the Alfa Romeo 159 1750 TBi. The 159 1750 TBi made its debut at the Geneva Motorshow in 2009. The 1750 TBi engine is actually a 1742 cc turbocharged gasoline engine, which replaces both the 1.9 and 2.2 JTS naturally aspirated engines. Alfa revived the legendary "1750" label for this engine, hoping it to get recognition from its fans. The engine is pretty advanced, featuring dual-continuous variable cam phasing, second-generation direct injection and a revolutionary "scavenging" technology. The latter utilizes valve overlapping to enable a momentary inrush of air directly from intake manifolds to exhaust manifolds (while precisely delay fuel injection and ignition during that moment). This helps in waking up the turbocharger at low rpm, reducing turbo lag. Its maximum torque of 236 lb-ft is delivered at an incredibly low 1400 rpm and packs the power of 200 horses. This giving the four-cylinder 159 vastly improved top speed and acceleration while reducing fuel consumption at the same time. It is a pity that this excellent engine is currently only mated to a 6 speed manual gearbox in the 159. In a country like Singapore where an automatic car is almost an automatic choice, this will spell bad news for sales figure. But never say never, let's pray that an automatic version will be offered and I am sure that it will attract a lot of attention at EuroAutomobile.

Alfa's car christening department has gone a little mad. First, with their MiTo, now the Giulietta. Bringing back the illustrious and beautiful name from the 70s. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I think the name is brilliant! It's just a feeling that they were trying a little too hard with the Mito. But the Guilietta.. that sounds fantastico! The 147's replacement will be showcased at the 2010 Geneva Motor show and this will only be available with 5 doors. So obviously it's meant for people like me who like hot hatches. This is definitely one. Just look at it! Its trademark Alfa triangular grille and those headlamps which are slightly reminiscent of the Alfa Romeo 8C (like the Mito), only better looking. And those gorgeous rims... a la Mercedes SLR. This car in white is the current hatchback killer. Boring Golf step aside... It's going to be available with 4 turbo engines, most notably the 170bhp 1.4l Multi-Air petrol engine. The car will also come with lots of electronic gadgetry: Electronic stability control, Dynamic steering torque and the new DNA selector from the Mito. So that's quite a lot of kit for a car this size with a 5 star NCAP safety rating. Can't wait for it. Can you?