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And of course, I would get it in the 260hp V6 AWD one. Other 4 banger gas and deisel options available, of course.

Alfa is coming back to the States in 2009 to correspond with their 100 year anniversary. They will initially be sold in Masarati dealerships, and will include the Brera cars.

Reported in a recent Crain's Automotive news. Even more detail in htis article:

By LUCA CIFERRI | Automotive News Europe


Alfa Romeo's Brera will be similar to the concept coupe that Italdesign-Giugiaro unveiled at the Geneva auto show in March 2002. A Spider version is also planned.
Alfa Romeo expects to sell 50,000 cars a year in the USA with a six-model lineup after it re-enters the market in 2007, President Daniele Bandiera says.

That would represent a dramatic departure from anything previously achieved by Alfa Romeo in the USA. From 1952 when the company first sold cars there to its 1995 withdrawal, its peak sales year was in 1986 with 8,201 units.

Regardless, Alfa Romeo is engineering all new models to comply with US regulations, though it has not yet decided exactly how the brand will be distributed when it returns to the USA in 2007.


Alfa Romeo's 2007 USA models
Brera coupe
Brera Spider two-seat derivative
156 sedan replacement
156 Sportwagon replacement
Kamal compact crossover
147 sedan replacement



"We will begin approaching the 40 dealers that were faithful to Alfa Romeo until the very end of operations in North America," Bandiera said. "But we will also talk with dealers that are currently successfully selling Maserati there, and any other General Motors brand dealer interested in our products."

Bandiera rejected the widely rumored suggestion that Alfas would be exclusively distributed in the United States by a GM sales channel such as Cadillac or Saab. GM has a 20 percent share in Fiat Auto, Alfa Romeo's owner.

"We wish to appoint dealers enthusiastic to our brand, not people almost obliged to add a new franchise that maybe is not really interesting for them. We want to return in the US in cooperation with GM, but we do not want to replicate the ARDONA mistake," Bandiera said.

The reference was to Alfa Romeo Distributors of North America, or ARDONA, which was a 1989 joint venture with Chrysler Corp. ARDONA's medium-term target - never achieved because of quality and reliability problems - was annual sales of 25,000 to 30,000.

The Alfa Romeo Milano, the US version of the European 75, regularly finished near the bottom of the J.D. Power and Associates initial quality survey, ahead of only the Yugo.

The Alfa Romeo 164 was a particular problem in terms of warranty costs.

Alfa Romeo carried on alone after Chrysler withdrew from the joint venture in late 1991. It finally notified its 97 remaining dealers in January 1995 that distribution would stop at the end of the year.

Alfa Romeo's planned US relaunch has made slow progress. Alfa announced plans to return to the USA by early 2003 after Fiat Auto signed its strategic alliance with GM in March 2000. In that agreement, GM and Fiat Auto created two joint-venture companies: one for global purchasing for their operations in Europe and Latin America, another that merged all powertrain operations in the same regions.

Alfa Romeo's original US plan was based on the replacement for the Spider, together with the GTV coupe derived from it. The cars were shown to US dealers, but Alfa Romeo suspended the project four months after the cars made their European debuts.

Alfa Romeo's US comeback has been delayed three times - to 2004, then to 2005 and last summer to 2007.

The first two delays were due to platform changes. Code-named Project 938, the Spider was first designed by Pininfarina on Fiat's new C-D-H platform, which made its debut on the Fiat Stilo in July 2001. The 938 was then switched to GM's Epsilon platform and, a year later, to the Premium platform Alfa Romeo was developing with Saab.

The final delay came in July 2002, when new Alfa Romeo management under Bandiera decided to kill the 938 project in favor of the Spider version of the Brera, the concept coupe that Italdesign-Giugiaro unveiled at the Geneva auto show in March 2002. The Brera has collected dozens of prizes, including one by sister publication Automotive News, which named it Concept Car of the Year.

Alfa's new range is code-named 939. It includes a Brera coupe that is almost identical to the concept car, a two-seat Spider derivative, and a four-door sedan and station wagon to replace the current 156 sedan and Sportwagon.

These four models will be the cornerstones of Alfa Romeo's 2007 return to the USA. They have front- and four-wheel-drive derivatives and are based on the Premium platform developed with Saab.

Alfa Romeo plans to unveil the Brera coupe and 156 sedan replacement in June 2005. European sales of the sedan will start in July, and the coupe in December. The replacement for the 156 Sportwagon will be unveiled in November 2005 and go on sale a month later. The range will be completed in March 2006 with the new Spider.

The Brera and the new Spider will be built by Pininfarina, which designed and builds the current Spider and GTV coupe.

Two other models seem destined to complete Alfa Romeo's 2007 lineup for the US. One is a production version of the Kamal compact crossover previewed at this year's Geneva show. The other is the Alfa Romeo 147 replacement, due to appear in Europe in May 2006. The model will be the first Alfa Romeo based on the new Fiat-GM common architecture designed for the replacements to the Fiat Stilo and the Opel/Vauxhall Astra.

Alfa Romeo may also introduce a full-size crossover to replace the 166 sedan flagship by 2007. It is said to be talking to Maserati about sharing the platform and running gear of the Kubang, which debuted at the Detroit show in January 2003.

The back-end of the car looks like the tail lights are squinting.

How much would they be going for if they appear in the states?

The car looks sick! Love the front end.

Well, the 1.9 liter starts at �£19,995 and the 260 h.p. 3.2 liter Q4 starts at �£26,850. I imagine our versions will be more expensive than that, but that's just my opinion.

The current exchange rate for the Pound is 1:1.84. That puts the entry-level 1.9 at $36,791 and the top-line Q4 at whopping $49,404! Ouch! Then again, this was designed to compete with the BMW 3-series. But that high-end model sure seems 'spensive to me!

Reminds me of a Acura TSX

Here's the only Alfa I can currently afford: