Photo: Young-Joon Suh
Despite its latest attempts, including jumping on board of the SUV train with the Stelvio model, Alfa Romeo is still a struggling brand. In fact, it's safe to say it would have been long dead if it weren't for its past or the passion it instills in its followers.
The Italian manufacturer is known for the sports cars it used to make back in the day, but if it wants to save itself from the ax, there's no time for any of that now. Alfa Romeo did try to resurrect some of its past glory with the likes of 4C or 8C Competizione, only to find out that ship had sailed. These days, people cry about the lack of sports cars while thoroughly ignoring those available and buying SUVs and crossovers.
Alfa Romeo responded with the Stelvio, a compact-sized crossover based on the Giulia platform that also borrowed some design cues from the moderately successful sedan. Now, the company's next move seems to be the smaller Tonale crossover.
Introduced last year in concept form, the sub-compact vehicle has since been leaked in production form and even though you'd have to really hate the Alfa Romeo design to say it's an ugly car, it does look a bit outdated already. Sure, draw your inspiration from older models and pay as many tributes as you want, but your 2020 model still needs to look up to par.
Digital artist Young-Joon Suh offers a different interpretation. He seems to think Alfa Romeo should go for a more aggressive look, and we wholeheartedly agree. Alfa should put its man pants back on and become the industry's troublemaker. If there's a brand that's perfectly suited for that bad boy aura, it's Alfa Romeo. Think of it as the mass-market Lamborghini, and you wouldn't be too far off.
But there's a catch: the performance has to be up there as well. If not, that would make Alfa the big-mouthed kid who starts to cry and run to his mommy whenever someone stands up to him, and you don't want to be that kid.
There's no way an SUV like the one conjured up by Young-Joon would not find thousands of buyers overnight if it came with a competitive powertrain under the hood. Sure, you need to look past all the concept car bits like the huge wheels or the narrow glasshouse, but we think that with that front end alone, Alfa Romeo would have no problem selling 400,000 of these every year worldwide. And even if we're wrong, at least the brand would go out fighting and full of character, instead of slowly declining toward its inevitable demise.
Alfa Romeo responded with the Stelvio, a compact-sized crossover based on the Giulia platform that also borrowed some design cues from the moderately successful sedan. Now, the company's next move seems to be the smaller Tonale crossover.
Introduced last year in concept form, the sub-compact vehicle has since been leaked in production form and even though you'd have to really hate the Alfa Romeo design to say it's an ugly car, it does look a bit outdated already. Sure, draw your inspiration from older models and pay as many tributes as you want, but your 2020 model still needs to look up to par.
Digital artist Young-Joon Suh offers a different interpretation. He seems to think Alfa Romeo should go for a more aggressive look, and we wholeheartedly agree. Alfa should put its man pants back on and become the industry's troublemaker. If there's a brand that's perfectly suited for that bad boy aura, it's Alfa Romeo. Think of it as the mass-market Lamborghini, and you wouldn't be too far off.
But there's a catch: the performance has to be up there as well. If not, that would make Alfa the big-mouthed kid who starts to cry and run to his mommy whenever someone stands up to him, and you don't want to be that kid.
There's no way an SUV like the one conjured up by Young-Joon would not find thousands of buyers overnight if it came with a competitive powertrain under the hood. Sure, you need to look past all the concept car bits like the huge wheels or the narrow glasshouse, but we think that with that front end alone, Alfa Romeo would have no problem selling 400,000 of these every year worldwide. And even if we're wrong, at least the brand would go out fighting and full of character, instead of slowly declining toward its inevitable demise.
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