Alfa Romeo boss hints at new Duetto convertible

Posted Wed Sep 19 2007 12:47 PM by Viknesh Vijayenthiran

Alfa Romeo boss Antonio Baravalle has one wish - to bring the Duetto, Dustin Hoffman's car from the 1967 film classic 'The Graduate,' back on the road. The original was powered by a tiny 1.6L engine and underwent a number of upgrades until it went out of production in 1994, but, with Alfa Romeo’s 100th anniversary coming up in 2010, Baravalle would like to see a new Duetto hit showrooms, according to Reuters.

Any new model would likely retain the same design principles of the original as hinted by Baravalle. "Small, compact, very low, and only for two people” is the way Alfa’s new Chief envisages a successor.

Alfa is also targeting a doubling in sales and a return to profitability after years of losing money due to a reputation for faulty mechanics and poor customer service, and the introduction of new and exciting models such as this would also help its resurgence into the tough U.S. market.

Reader Comments

Sun Jun 22 2008 11:18 AM
Bill says

This is the thinking I'm talking about! I loved the handling of my '63 Spider and rarely exceeded 70 mph, even on our local freeways. Forget the 400 hp monsters and give us back our cars that are small, easiy to maintain and economically agreeable to operate.

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