Meet the Alfa Romeo Junior (formerly Milano)
Last week, Alfa Romeo unveiled its first ever electric car. At the time, and for months before its launch, the car was known as Milano. However, a week later, Alfa’s new car has a new name: Junior.
A press release from Alfa Romeo today stated:
”During one of the most important weeks for the future of Alfa Romeo, an Italian government official declared that the use of the name Milano – chosen by the brand for its recently unveiled new compact sports car – is banned by law.
Despite Alfa Romeo believing that the name meets all legal requirements, and that there are issues much more important than the name of a new car, Alfa Romeo has decided to change it from Milano to Junior in the spirit of promoting mutual understanding.”
The original Milano name was chosen to pay tribute to the city where Alfa’s history began in 1910 and public feedback was garnered before committing to the choice. However, it seems the Italian government weren’t didn’t share the same enthusiasm with the brand choosing to build the car in Poland, rather than in its home city of Milan. Alfa has now dipped back into its box of names to suggest another public favourite, Junior.
Jean-Philippe Imparato – CEO Alfa Romeo said: “We decided to change the name, even though we know that we are not required to do so, because we want to preserve the positive emotion that our products have always generated and avoid any type of controversy. The attention to our new sports compact that we’ve received the past few days is quite exciting as we had an unprecedented number of visits to the online configurator, causing the website to crash for a couple hours."
The Junior is the first electric Alfa Romeo and shares the same platform as Stellantis stablemates the Abarth 600e and Jeep Avenger. The entry-level models, known as 'Elettrica' have 156hp and a range of up to 250 miles (366 miles if driving in town), while the more powerful Veloce model, with 240hp, will also be available.
Charging from 10-80% with a 100kW rapid charger will take less than half an hour.
Inside, the Junior has a sporty feel and comes with a 10.25-inch central infotainment screen which uses Alfa’s latest operating system. The car comes with a fair bit of driver assistance tech including 360-degree parking sensors, a 180-degree rear camera and semi-autonomous parking, while the boot space is the largest in any electric car of its class at 400 litres.
And for those not willing to make the switch to an EV just yet, there will also be a hybrid model, with a 1.2 litre three-cylinder turbo. Price and release dates have yet to be confirmed.
words: Mike Booth
pictures: Alfa Romeo