When Will Alfa Romeo's Sexy Competizione Come Stateside?

Ronnie Tanner
March 4, 2009

Many European sports car enthusiasts mourned the loss of Alfa Romeo in 1995. Now they may have a reason to celebrate. At least that’s what’s been circulating on the automotive grapevine. Rumors of Alfa Romeo’s return to the United States market have been mounting for some time, but nothing has whet the appetite of legions of eager fans quite the way this latest rumor has. So what’s causing such an unprecedented stir? It’s the sleek new curvaceous 2 seater the 8C Competizione, intended to harken back to the early styling of Alfa’s heyday of the 1930’s and 40’s. The Competizione derives its name directly from the ‘6C 2500 Competizione which was raced in the 1949 and 1950 Mille Miglia race and placed third in both races.

Not since Alfa Romeo left the American market back in 1995 have loyal fans here had so much reason to hope that Alfa is once more seeking the adoration of its American fans. As exciting as this news maybe, unfortunately the timeline for the reintroduction has been pushed back almost from the moment the first announcement was made. Sources now indicate that the new target date is the 2010 model year.

The 8C Competizione was first introduced in 2003 to an audience at the Frankfurt show in 2003 and received rave reviews. As intended, the 8C is an expensive, limited edition sports designed to herald in the resurgence of Alfa Romeo’s dominance in the European sports car market.

Maserati’s V8 will be the power for the horses under the hood of the sleek long lined sports coupe and it has been enlarge to 4.7 liters with an expected output of 450 horsepower. Alfa had entertained the idea of building a convertible as well but has shelved those plans, for now at least.

With the price range stated at somewhere between $175,000 and $200,000, Alfa plans to build only a limited number of cars for both the European and American markets. 500 are planned for Europe and anyone in Europe who wants one of these beauties will have to go right to the source: Alfa’s home office in Italy. For the United States market, plans are set for a production run of 99 of these cars in the $200,000 range. A facility in Modena is set to build the others and Alfa expects 600 total to be produced for the United States over 18 months and then production will cease.

Arrival for showrooms in the United States is set for some time in 2010 with no hard fast date being released as of yet. Alfa also intends to introduce several other models to the U.S. market. Two of these have been rumored to be the Brera and the all new MiTo (pronounced me to) as competition for BMW’s ever popular Mini. Dates for sales to the public have not been release yet for these models.

Although many questions still remain about the anticipated return of the Alfa Romeo to the United States, it does remain clear that Alfa Romeo has all intentions of taking the North American market by storm.

Ronnie Tanner is a contributing writer at http://www.swengines.com. He writes about used Alfa engines and choosing this as an alternative to costly car purchases.

Source: Amazines.com