1991 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloche Convertible Low Miles on 2040-cars

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Scrapyard Gem: 1999 Alfa Romeo 166, Screwball Rally Edition

SHERBURN-IN-ELMET, England — Alfa Romeo took a break from selling new cars in the United States after 1995, when the final Spider Veloces and 164s were sold here. That beat Fiat and Lancia (both of which departed after 1982), but still deprived us of the Alfa 164's handsome successor: the 166. The easiest way to find discarded 166s is to cross the Atlantic, so that's what I did recently. I've been spending a lot of time in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg in recent years, being the descendant of immigrants from that tiny but proud nation, and there are still quite a few 166s prowling the streets of Luxembourg City. Despite their reputation for unreliability and horrifically rapid depreciation, the 166 looks so good that I remain tempted to ship one home. The facelifted model in the photo above had its debut as a 2003 model and thus won't be legal in the United States until 2028, but the first-year '99s shouldn't raise any U.S. Customs eyebrows when you pick one up at your local port. I was hoping to shoot plenty of interesting Italian iron during my trip to the scrapyards of Yorkshire in January, so I headed over to Sherburn Motor Spares, located on the very land in Sherburn-in-Elmet where the famous Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers of Bismarck-crippling fame were built. This yard specialises in Italian and French cars; it's what we'd call a dismantler in the United States, so customers aren't allowed to pull their own parts unless they get permission beforehand. There's a nice little breakfast joint located just out front, which was welcome on a below-freezing Yorkshire morning, and the employees are very friendly (though a bit difficult to understand if you come from anywhere else in the English-speaking world). Inside, you'll find plenty of Alfa Romeos, Fiats, Peugeots, Citroens, Renaults and even a few Toyota MR2s; I spotted an extremely rare Alfa Romeo Brera S, which was one of a mere 500 built. Cars rust quickly and inspections are rigorous in England, so I didn't see many machines built prior to our current century. Well back in one of the rows, however, was this first-year 166 done up in some kind of racing livery. The cars were packed and stacked so closely that I wasn't able to get great photos of this car, but Sherburn Motor Spares has included some pre-stacking photos in their eBay store.

It's the Alfa Romeo Brennero after all

In an "X-Files" television episode called "Teliko," the show changed its usual tagline during the title sequence from "The truth is out there" to "Deceive, Inveigle, Obfuscate." Both taglines would apply to the mystery around the name of Alfa Romeo's coming subcompact SUV. For the longest while, based on information from unnamed sources, the urban runabout twinned with Europe's Jeep Avenger was expected to be named the Alfa Romeo Brennero, honoring Italy's Brennero Pass (Brenner Pass in English). Then automaker design head Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos said something to Autocar over the summer that led Autocar to write, "that name was ruled out by Mesonero-Romanos." Autocar didn't quote the designer's words used to dismiss the expected name, it only quoted what came next, Mesonero-Romanos saying, "The model name is now decided. it will be Italian and it will be beautiful. But more than that, I cannot say for now." Maybe we’ve known it all along.#AlfaRomeo pic.twitter.com/dE10xGYXwO — Alfa Romeo (@alfa_romeo) December 6, 2023 The decided, Italian, beautiful name is Brennero. That's what we get from an automaker post on X bearing the caption, "Maybe we've known it all along," and a 15-second animation flashing four GPS coordinates. One coordinate picks out Alfa RomeoÂ’s history museum, the Museo Storico, another the Balocco Proving Grounds, another the Stelvio Pass, and finally, the Brennero Pass. This post could be considered Alfa answering its own question from June of this year — a month before Mesonero-Romano's supposed denial — with the caption, "A game-changing #SportyUrbanVehicle is on the horizon. What will be the name of our new Alfa Romeo? Take a guess in the comments below." Speculation has gathered around a few hard points. The Brennero sits on the CMP/e-CMP platform utilized by the Avenger, the Fiat 600, the Peugeot 2008, and the DS 3 Crossback. In electric form, it fits the Avenger's 54-kWh battery and front axle e-motor making the same 154 horsepower and 192 pound-feet of torque, and will likely get around the same 248 miles on a charge on the WLTP cycle. As the new entry-level offering beneath the Tonale, if the Brennero adopts Avenger dimensions, the Brennero will be about 16 inches shorter than the Tonale, its roof about three inches lower. More speculative speculation supposes there could be a dual-motor all-wheel-drive Brennero evolved from the drivetrain in the Avenger 4x4 Concept.

Stellantis earnings rise along with EV sales

AMSTERDAM — Automaker Stellantis on Wednesday reported its earnings grew in 2022 from a year earlier and said its push into electric vehicles led to a jump in sales even as it faces growing competition from an industrywide shift to more climate-friendly offerings. Stellantis, formed in 2021 from the merger of Fiat Chrysler and FranceÂ’s PSA Peugeot, said net revenue of 179.6 billion euros ($191 billion) was up 18% from 2021, citing strong pricing and its mix of vehicles. It reported net profit of 16.8 billion euros, up 26% from 2021. Stellantis plans to convert all of its European sales and half of its U.S. sales to battery-electric vehicles by 2030. It said the strategy led to a 41% increase in battery EV sales in 2022, to 288,000 vehicles, compared with the year earlier. The company has “demonstrated the effectiveness of our electrification strategy in Europe,” CEO Carlos Tavares said in a statement. “We now have the technology, the products, the raw materials and the full battery ecosystem to lead that same transformative journey in North America, starting with our first fully electric Ram vehicles from 2023 and Jeep from 2024.” The automaker is competing in an increasingly crowded field for a share of the electric vehicle market. Companies are scrambling to roll out environmentally friendly models as they look to hit goals of cutting climate-changing emissions, driven by government pressure. The transformation has gotten a boost from a U.S. law that is rolling out big subsidies for clean technology like EVs but has European governments calling out the harm that they say the funding poses to homegrown industry across the Atlantic. Stellantis' Jeep brand will start selling two fully electric SUVs in North America and another one in Europe over the next two years. It says its Ram brand will roll out an electric pickup truck this year, joining a rush of EV competitors looking to claim a piece of the full-size truck market. The company plans to bring 25 battery-electric models to the U.S. by 2030. As part of that push, it has said it would build two EV battery factories in North America. A $2.5 billion joint venture with Samsung will bring one of those facilities to Indiana, which is expected to employ up to 1,400 workers. The other factory will be in Windsor, Ontario, a collaboration with South KoreaÂ’s LG Energy Solution that aims to create about 2,500 jobs. The EV push comes amid a slowdown in U.S.