Alfa Romeo has revealed why it broke-up with Mazda and dumped its MX-5-based roadster project onto sister brand Fiat.
Why? The MX-5 was not Italian enough and too small, according to the company's design chief Lorenzo Ramaciotti.
"We made an agreement with Mazda to use their platform to create a sports vehicle and this was done before the new strategy was made for Alfa Romeo," Ramaciotti told Drive after the reveal of the all-important new Giulia in Milan last week.
"One of the key points for the new strategy is that Alfa Romeo will be made in Italy because it is an Italian project and we want to export it to the world. We want to keep very strong Italian roots.
"At this moment the use of a platform that has been developed elsewhere, and because the car would be manufactured outside of Italy, was the main point in deviating from this project.
"To be very fair, the vehicle is also very small for what we would like as an Alfa sports car. Mazda went in a direction going smaller as they were chasing a strategy of downsizing, but without too much power in the engine and to reduce the size of engines. It is not that kind of fit for the power and presence we wanted for Alfa."
Why? The MX-5 was not Italian enough and too small, according to the company's design chief Lorenzo Ramaciotti.
"We made an agreement with Mazda to use their platform to create a sports vehicle and this was done before the new strategy was made for Alfa Romeo," Ramaciotti told Drive after the reveal of the all-important new Giulia in Milan last week.
"One of the key points for the new strategy is that Alfa Romeo will be made in Italy because it is an Italian project and we want to export it to the world. We want to keep very strong Italian roots.
"At this moment the use of a platform that has been developed elsewhere, and because the car would be manufactured outside of Italy, was the main point in deviating from this project.
"To be very fair, the vehicle is also very small for what we would like as an Alfa sports car. Mazda went in a direction going smaller as they were chasing a strategy of downsizing, but without too much power in the engine and to reduce the size of engines. It is not that kind of fit for the power and presence we wanted for Alfa."
