Alfa Romeo Teases U.S. Buyers with Blog about Mi To
By Marty Jerome April 11, 2008 | 5:33:59 PMCategories: Concept Cars

After a 13 year absence, Alfa Romeo will return to the United States with its Competizione sports car. It's a lovely machine, to be sure, but with an estimated price tag of $200,000, it won't exactly have a pronounced presence in the U.S. Alfa currently plans to sell it through select Maserati dealerships.

But company officials have been flirting with the idea of bringing the BMW Mini killer, Mi To (shorthand for the cities of Milan and Turin) stateside. The company has recently launched an interactive blog for the car. It has already received more than 3,500 posts worldwide. If this is any indication of the excitement surrounding the Mi To, it's success in the United States is all but assured.

The question is whether Alfa Romeo would rebuild a network of dealerships in the U.S. It was hounded from the country in 1995, thanks to its reputation for poor quality. Fiat, which owns both Alfa Romeo and Maserati, has been scouting for partners in the U.S., and is potentially looking to build cars here in order to avoid the harsh penalty of a falling dollar.

The Mi To will arrive in European showrooms this year at a price of about $25,000.

Photo: Alfa Romeo

MiTo's big bro
Brave move, lining up your new baby hatchback alongside your range-topping supercar: a supercar that just happens to be one of the most beautiful of recent years.

But brave Alfa is, and has sent the stunning 8C Competizione off to the studio with its little brother, the MiTo (which mysteriously - though thankfully - seems to have lost its mid-word full stop since we first saw it in March).

The idea, of course, is to highlight the family resemblance, to show off the MiTo as a mini-8C. The risk, however, is that the comparison highlights just how, well, average a £20,000 hatchback looks alongside a £100,000-plus supercar.

But, to hand it to Alfa, the MiTo doesn't look half-bad in such exalted company. Not quite as good as the 8C, naturally, but you can see the Alfa DNA in the strong shoulder crease, single-frame side window and round, stubby taillights.

Though Alfa is still staying quiet on the technical details of the MiTo, it has released a couple more pictures of the interior, which is swathed in carbon fibre (effect?) trim and features Alfa's favourite aluminium-framed binnacles. Don't expect the lower-spec versions to be quite so lavish.

And anyhow, we'd still take the 8C instead. Ta.