Prodan Dragos’ Alfa Romeo Giulia Concept is one Mean Machine

It’s about time the Italians get off their collective backsides and knock out a competitor to the BMW 1-Series coupe. Something a bit like the Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint of the 1960s in that it should be a two-door, three-box Bavarian-killer with a sweet-as-silk motor and looks to die for. Romanian industrial designer Prodan Dragos no doubt agrees.

His Alfa Romeo Giulia Concept packs a 180 hp (134 kW) petrol engine mated to an 80 kW electric motor and a 6spd manual transmission. It also has a lightweight body crafted out of aluminium and carbon fibre-reinforced polymer, with polycarbonate windows to further save on weight.

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Oops! They Did it Again: Alfa Romeo’s Return to the US Delayed Until 2013

It’s 2003, 2004, 2006 – you get the idea- happening all over again; Alfa Romeo’s return to the US market has been delayed and will not happen in 2012 as was the most recent plan. Instead, Fiat Group and Chrysler LLC CEO, Sergio Marchionne, has pushed the Italian brand’s arrival back for another year, or so until he announces another delay. Read more »

Report: New Alfa Romeo-Derived / U.S. Made Dodge Compact Sedan to Debut at 2012 Detroit Show

A new U.S. market compact sedan to be developed by Fiat and built by Chrysler is set to make its debut appearance at the 2012 North American International Auto Show in Detroit in the beginning of next year, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

The as-of-yet unnamed model will be badged as Dodge and powered by a Fiat-derived 1.4-liter turbocharged gasoline engine. It’ll also do 40 mpg combined, or at least it will if Fiat wants to net itself a further 5% of Chrysler from Mr. Monopoly Uncle Sam.

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Alfa Romeo Focuses on the Giulietta and 2011MY MiTo at the Geneva Show

The Fiat Group will have a particularly strong presence at the Geneva Motor Show this year, as it’s planning to reveal a bevy of new models and concept cars. Alfa Romeo’s offering at the Swiss salon will be centered on the Giulietta compact and 2011MY MiTo subcompact models, with two of each scheduled to go on display. And for those of you wondering, Alfa's press release made no mention of the rumored concept sports coupe based on the underpinnings of the KTM X-Bow.

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Alfa Romeo UK Adds New Diesel with 140HP and 62.8 MPG to Giulietta Lineup

A newly developed 2.0-liter JTDM engine has made its way under the hood of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta in the UK. The four-cylinder turbocharged diesel unit, which delivers 140HP at 4,000 rpm and 320Nm of peak torque in 'Normal' mode and 350Nm in 'Dynamic' mode, gets the latest generation JTDM-2 MultiJet Common Rail system that is already present on the 105HP 1.6 JTDM-2 and the 170HP 2.0 JTDM-2 engines.

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Euro NCAP's Best and Worst Performers of 2010

The European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), which is similar to the American IIHS testing regimen, has released a list with the safest car in each vehicle category and the two worst performers overall of 2010. The cars that attained the coveted five star rating and achieved the highest overall score in their respective segment are:

------ Executive category: BMW 5 Series
------ Small Family category: Alfa Romeo Giulietta
------ Supermini category: Honda CR-Z
------ Small off-road 4×4 category: Kia Sportage
------ Small MPV category: Toyota Verso

On the other side of the fence are two models that achieved the poorest results of 2010. These are the Citroen Nemo with three stars and China's Landwind CV9 that received only two stars.

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