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Alfa Romeo celebrates Quadrifoglio's 100th anniversary

This year, Alfa Romeo celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Quadrifoglio becoming part of Alfa Romeo lore. In 1923, team racing driver and eternal second-place finisher Ugo Sivocci painted a four-leaf clover inside a white square on his RL "Corsa" single-seater developed to win the Targa Florio. Sivocci won the race, giving Alfa Romeo its first international victory. A few months later, Sivocci went to Monza to test the P1 for the Grand Prix of Europe. He hadn't painted a four-leaf clover on the #17 P1 he drove, and he died during practice. True, correlation is not causation, but it's hard to find a more superstitious bunch than racing teams drivers. The Italians retired #17 from racing vehicles, and from 1924 every Alfa Romeo featured a Quadrifoglio on the bodywork inside of a triangle instead of a square. The missing point represented the loss of Sivocci. Since then, those green leaves have identified Alfas among the sea of other red Italian single seaters from competitors like Ferrari and Maserati. Of course, sometimes the cars didn't need such help, the lines on models like the TZ and P33 iconic enough to forgo further distinction. The Milanese added Quadrifoglio versions of production cars in the 1960s, but didn't make it part of official production names until the 1980s. Following that, the branding expanded into two clovers, a Quadrifoglio Oro (gold) denoting luxury versions, a Quadrifoglio Verde for sporty variants. Then came even wider use as the single letter "Q" for features like the Q2 locking differential and Q4 all-wheel drive. Centro Stile Alfa Romeo tweaked the logo, the graphic to appear at brand events that will kick off on the official centenary June 25. That's been dubbed "Quadrifoglio Day," host to a "Backstage" conference and parade open to all of Alfa Romeo clubs.    This year is also the 60th anniversary of Alfa Romeo's Autodelta racing division. Equivalent to an AMG or M division for the Italians, predating both German versions, the famous Alfa Romeo racing cars like the 1965 Giulia Sprint GTA and the 1975 33 TT 12 sports car racer emerged from the Autodelta workshops. These celebrations will come first, on March 5, punctuated by a conference at the Alfa Romeo Museum in Arese, Milan. Related video:

Marchionne to make Alfa Romeo a separate company within Fiat

According to a report in Automotive News that quotes "people familiar with the matter," the next big play in Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne's plan for Alfa Romeo is to break it off from Fiat Group Automobiles and set it up as a separate company within the Fiat empire, giving it the same structure as Ferrari and Maserati. The idea, say the sources, is that a transparent, standalone Alfa Romeo that has to justify its every move could clearly prove its success in the public financial statements it would have to report, finally achieving Marchionne's aim of making Alfa Romeo "a credible business proposition."
That, of course, assumes that Alfa Romeo will make a success of it. The brand hasn't made a profit in any year of Marchionne's decade at the helm; sales last year fell to numbers not seen in almost half a century and its new product offensive might not include the two vehicles currently responsible for 99 percent of its sales. We're told that the brand's six new models will begin arriving in 2016 - a roadster, a midsize sedan and large sedan, a compact SUV and large SUV, and a large coupe.
Marchionne aims to expand Alfa's global appeal in several ways, the first by stressing that they are Italian products that 'belong' to Italy. This is the stance that appears to have put the kibosh on the roadster twinned with the coming Mazda MX-5/Miata. Alfa Romeos will all be made in their home country, and if they take off they'll help bandage Fiat's problem with underused plant capacity, a bugbear that is just as problematic culturally and politically as financially. Top-tier trims would use V6 engines developed by Ferrari, and global access would get a boost by selling Alfa Romeos in Jeep's 1,700 international dealerships.

Alfa Romeo won't sully the GTA name by putting it on the Stelvio

Alfa Romeo began celebrating its 110th birthday by resurrecting the heritage-laced GTA nameplate on a track-happy evolution of the Giulia Quadrifoglio. Enthusiasts went wild when they heard the news, but the company warned it's not about to put the GTA name on every model it makes just to capitalize on its popularity. First launched in 1965, the GTA acronym has historically denoted a lighter version of an existing model developed with racing (or, at least, track use) in mind. The recently-unveiled Giulia GTA fits the bill; a Stelvio GTA wouldn't, according to the company. Executives thought long and hard about it and ultimately ruled it out. "GTA is an important name for Alfa Romeo. Frankly speaking, we had a meeting on a Stelvio GTA, but it's just not in line with customer expectations. It has to be the best possible [on the track]. On the Stelvio, we have a higher center of gravity [than on the Giulia], so it won't achieve the same goals," said Fabio Migliavacca, the company's product marketing boss, in a candid interview with British magazine Autocar. His comments suggest the 505-horsepower Quadrifoglio model is as hot as the Stelvio will get in the foreseeable future. There's no indication Alfa Romeo is planning to add a second sedan to its range — its next new model is widely believed to be a smaller crossover — so the GTA treatment will be limited to the Giulia (pictured). This could explain why demand for the car and its two-seater GTAm counterpart has been exceptionally high. The stripped-out, 540-horsepower sedans are limited to 500 numbered units combined worldwide. Alfa Romeo hasn't started taking orders yet, and it had the misfortune of unveiling the model mere days before the Italian government imposed an ongoing national coronavirus quarantine, but it has received more expressions of interest than it has build slots. Migliavacca revealed a majority of the enthusiasts the firm has heard from prefer the more hardcore GTAm over the slightly softer GTA. It's lighter, and consequently quicker around a track. "A lot of people are raising their hands and saying, 'I want to have one,' 'I want to have four,'" he said. "It's truly an amazing reaction considering the timing." Related Video: