It Would Take Immense Effort For Alfa Romeo To Bring The 4C Back

There’s an old cliché that goes along the lines of “You’re not a true car enthusiast unless you’ve owned an Alfa Romeo.” It’s a perfect example of gatekeeping, as to own an Alfa Romeo, you need to be willing to deal with a lot of problems. But that reputation is what has helped keep Alfa Romeo down for decades. Right now, Alfa Romeo simply does not have a sports car on the books and, while it may be a while to show up, it’s what everyone working at Alfa Romeo wants.

The return of the 4C or something similar would be fantastic news, but Alfa Romeo is not in the position to make it happen just yet. While talking to Auto Express in the UK, Alfa’s marketing executive, Cristiano Fiorio, understands the hill the brand needs to climb first.

The Hill That Needs To Be Climbed

“If we want to fulfill the dreams of you, our fans and our clients, we need to be able to produce results, because at a certain point, if a brand doesn’t make money, it will not be able to sustain its future, and Alfa Romeo has always had a problem of not delivering on promises,” Fiorio says. It’s a brutally realistic understanding of where Alfa Romeo is right now as it prepares the new Alfa Romeo Stelvio for unveiling later in the year and the next Alfa Romeo Guilia, due in 2026.

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Credibility seems to be the codeword for reliability Alfa Romeo is using, as it has built some great-looking and excellently performing cars worthy of the Alfa Romeo name over the past ten years or so. “We have to generate credibility, so do one model every year and prove that we are able to execute that, make it profitable, and make numbers which are acceptable for the investment. Once we have a track record on that, then we can dream,” he explains.

“Any person working in Alfa Romeo would tell you that at a certain point in time we would like to have another reachable performance car. But I always believe that before going into dreams, like when people said why don’t you go back into motorsport, we have to deliver.”

– Cristiano Fiorio.

To build a sports car that people will love but won’t sell in big numbers, Alfa Romeo needs to sell units of its more practical vehicles. There’s a reason all the consistent sports car makers now have an SUV, and the supercar makers are realizing they need to. Alfa Romeo’s next-generation Stelvio and Guilia will arrive with options for a hybrid or all-electric powertrain, which puts them on point as the hybrid is the most realistic powertrain for the next decade or two and all-electric works for a lot of potential customers’ lifestyles.

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Quadrifoglio Isn’t Going Away

That doesn’t mean the high-performance combustion-powered Quadrifoglio won’t be going away, though. “Personally, I do not see a Quadrifoglio EV. I see a Quadrifoglio which has the sound of a real engine. As of now. Maybe in five years, things will change. But as of now, the Quadrifoglio to me – to us – should be something with a roar.” Putting all this together gives us a lot of hope for Alfa Romeo considering it’s going to be under extreme scrutiny from its parent brand, Stellantis, over the next few years.

Source: AutoExpress