Alfa Romeo Will Soon Bin Its Rear-Wheel Drive Platform
FCA had grand plans for the near-billion euro Giorgio platform. It was to underpin no less than 15 models across multiple brands, and yet, all these years after its launch, it’s only been used for the Alfa Romeo Giulia and Stelvio.
Now, it turns out Alfa will bin the rear-wheel drive architecture altogether. The issue? It was never designed with electrification in mind, so future cars from the brand will instead sit on the Stellantis STLA-Large platform along with multiple models from sister brands.
Alfa Romeo CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato told a roundtable of Italian journalists this week: “We are working on the Large platform of Stellantis and we will no longer use the Giorgio…We must take advantage of the volumes to take all possible opportunities and bring an EV range to Alfa Romeo, but always with the touch of Alfa Romeo.”
Giorgio won’t be ditched entirely by Stellantis, Imparato noted, with plans to integrate a modified version within the newly forged auto giant’s four-platform stategy. Alongside the lack of future proofing for electrification, it’s also apparently of little use for anything other than mid-sized vehicles.
In the more immediate future, the Maserati Grecale is expected to use Giorgio, while the Giulia and Stelvio, both introduced in 2016, have a good few years of life left in them. It’s just a shame the two cars are effectively one-offs in what was supposed to be a grand rebirth for Alfa, with a bigger 5-series-rivalling saloon plus a new GTV and 8C also promised not so long ago. All three were canned as FCA announced in 2019 was to scale back Alfa’s future. The Tonale crossover, meanwhile (pictured above in concept form), has been delayed as company bosses have decided the plug-in hybrid powertrain isn’t up to snuff.
Since the creation of Stellantis, it’s also emerged that Lancia will be brought back from the brink. Of course, we all hoped this might involve the use of the Giorgio platform and Alfa’s apparently Ferrari-derived V6, but in light of this latest development, the brand’s bigger cars will no doubt use STLA-large too.
Source: Forbes
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Que the next-gen Gulia being badge-engineered from Peugeot 508/Opel Insignia with 1.5 HDi FF drivetrain… 😔
I’d say it’s more likely the next generation will be electric, given the platform that’s replacing it is just that.
If Jaguar hadn’t had a total paradigm shift, they should totally have bought this and put a new XE on it.
It was never designed with electrification in mind
That’s just poor decision making. How are you going to spend billions on a sedan/crossover/SUV platform and not consider electrification?
The platform started production 6 years ago, and likely began R&D a while before that. Would you have considered that everything would’ve gone electric within its lifetime in 2014/15?
Alfa Romeo makes cars for car enthusiasts, not electric appliances for the masses.
Horrible news. Literary nothing to look forward to in the future of car industry.