08 Mar 04
ItalDesign's other intro was the Alfa Romeo Visconti, conceived to clothe the 'premium' platform under joint development by Fiat and General Motors. Pre-show speculation had this four-door saloon as a preview for next year's Alfa 156 replacement, to be called (logically enough) 157, but the Visconti seems too big for that with its huge 19in wheels perfectly in proportion with the rest of it.
Ital Design is riding high at Alfa Romeo at the moment, with the recent Alfa 156 facelift, a niggling rumour that Ital was actually responsible for the original 156 and the Ital-designed Brera coupé near to production, and the Visconti has all the right Alfa design details. The five-bar grille is flanked by prominent 'whiskers', and leads into a polished aluminium strip along the bonnet's centre. It is a very cab-forward design, the front wheels set well back behind that long and very rounded nose. The similarly rounded tail is a new Alfa departure, though, with a sloping fastback to accentuate the four-door coupé look and intriguing tail-lights with layered reflectors stacked obliquely behind each other.
As conceived, the Visconti has a twin-turbo, direct-injection, 3.2-litre V6 of 405bhp - presumably the idea is to base it on the GM V6 block that will be part of the GM/Fiat collaboration. All-wheel drive and steering also feature. Will the upcoming 157 be based on this car? We'll find out soon enough.
