THE Alfa Romeo brand has three distinctive elements.
Sporty styling, a shield logo incorporating a cross and a grass snake and a heritage of success in motor racing, beginning when one of their drivers was an ambitious young man named Enzo Ferrari, who later went on to manage the company racing team and eventually left to build his own cars.
BY BRIAN BYRNE
Alfas were raced well between the world wars, and also in the 1950s when Formula One was inaugurated and subsequently in various international sports car championships.
The company also has a heritage of periodically hitting financial rocks and its ownership, including by the Italian State, has shifted several times.
It nearly became merged with Nissan at one point, and Ford also pitched a bid, but eventually Fiat took over.
Today Alfa Romeo is part of the 14-brand Stellantis automotive conglomerate, which has brought a certain amount of sneering today about Peugeot switchgear and powertrain mongrelisation in current Alfas.
That doesn’t really matter, because the sniffing is either from the cigars and brandy brigade now browsing mobility scooter catalogues, or others too young to remember ‘real’ Alfas but who want to sound knowledgeable beyond their experience.
What’s really important is whether the cars suit today’s potential owners.
The Junior is the new smallest Alfa Romeo, a B segment crossover-SUV replacing the MiTo 3-door hatch which finished a decade of existence in 2018.
The Junior name has a 1960s sports coupe heritage, the body styling is attractive Alfaesque, and for those who like to sniff, the relations are Peugeot 2008, Opel Mokka and Jeep Avenger among others.
I liked the shape of my review car and the styling details that weave well classic and modern. I loved the colour, which is the defining red of the brand.
The latest shield motif built into the fascia is an intriguing black modern interpretation of the traditional badge.
Inside the cockpit stylists have created what some might figure as a mish-mash of angles and lines, but most elements work well to me.
An Alfa double-cowl shape over the driving instrumentation is a little exaggerated but I suppose it honours tradition.
The centre screen is set a little lower than we’re used to, and did require fairly definite finger-pokes to operate virtual buttons.
Key heating-ventilation controls are proper switches, but seat heating required an additional double-tap through the screen menus.
None of which was problematic, but what I would like are brighter graphics on the switches, which are rather hidden in shadow.
The seats were suitably sporty and for me very comfortable.
The non-adjustable integrated head restraints were, fortunately, perfectly angled.
The SUV designation in B segment cars can be a little ambitious in terms of rear passenger space, and in the Junior that space is about passable.
The Alfa ethos is about performance.
The Junior is powered with either the familiar Stellantis 1.2 mild hybrid petrol that I’m fond of (not available here in the car yet, but promised soon), or the battery-electric of my Elettrica review car.
This had the 156hp version which offers acceleration to 100km/h in a fairly leisurely 9s, but the Veloce variant extracts 280hp and a sub-6s sprint.
Both electrics have the same 54kWh battery, so the more powerful version gets a lesser-rated range of 347km compared to the other’s 410km.
Both ranges will be actually less in cold weather — my car used an indicated 90km over an actual 56km journey, for instance, with outside temperature at 4 degrees.
A lowered suspension and tweaks to the handling and steering settings differentiates the Alfa from the other branded cousins.
A gimmick in the Junior Elettrica is an artificial engine note going up and down ‘through the gears’ to simulate what those older sporty Alfas sounded like.
It’s only inside, though, so there’s no impressing the onlookers outside.
Taking the car as a whole, does it measure up to its pedigree?
It looks the part. It has the interior feel-good part.
It even, gently, can sound the part.
I’m old enough to be cigars and brandy, but I’m actually a non-smoking wine man, so I’m not sneering or sniffy.
The Alfa Junior’s proposition is for today, and all the better for that.
