A revival of Alfa Romeo’s iconic sports car is in the pipeline, although it isn’t due for a while yet.
Alfa Romeo has produced many versions of its Spider sports car over the years, ranging from the iconic Duetto classic roadster to the most recent Alfa Romeo Spider that was removed from sale in 2011. Now, Alfa Romeo plans to bring back this long-running nameplate on a new sports car – which will be fully electric.
No official design drawings for the car have been showcased yet, though as our renderings show, we expect the new Alfa Romeo roadster to feature styling cues you’d expect to find on a two-seater convertible sports car. Despite not having a petrol engine up front, we expect the new Alfa Romeo Duetto to have a long bonnet, a steeply-raked windscreen and short bumper overhangs. Other characteristic Alfa Romeo styling touches like slim headlights and telephone dial-style wheels will likely be carried over, too.
We also have a good idea of what the new Alfa Romeo Duetto will feature under the skin, since Alfa Romeo’s CEO Jean-Phillippe Imparato has ruled out using the smallest electric car platform that’s being developed by Alfa’s parent company, Stellantis. This means it’s highly likely the new roadster will use Stellantis’ mid-size platform, which in its most compact guise can support cars around 4.3m long. That’s around the same size as the current Porsche 718 Cayman and Toyota GR 86 sports cars.
This medium size platform will be able to support battery sizes between 87kWh and 104kWh and electric motors with power outputs varying from 125kW to 180kW. Given the Alfa Romeo roadster’s billing as a sports car, it’s highly likely the new electric Spider will use the more powerful electric motors, with potentially even more potent models being on the cards, depending on whether there’ll be all-wheel drive models.
While an electric Alfa Romeo sports car is being considered, it won’t be part of Alfa’s range for a while yet, since the company is prioritising its higher-volume cars ahead of more niche projects. When asked how long it would take until an electric Alfa Romeo roadster becomes a reality, Imparato explained: “Five. In fact, let me rephrase that point. It’s like asking how long do we need to do the job? The answer is five years”.
This means a new Alfa Romeo Duetto Spider likely won’t arrive until around 2027, which is when Alfa Romeo is set to phase-out combustion-powered models from its range entirely. In the build-up to that 2027 deadline, Alfa Romeo will launch a suite of new cars, starting with the Tonale SUV and eventually including an electric Giulia successor – an electric small crossover plus a large SUV positioned above the current Alfa Romeo Stelvio.
Even though electric sports cars are currently few and far between, there’s set to be much more variety by the time the new Alfa Romeo roadster goes on sale. Porsche has confirmed plans for an exclusively-electric 718 Cayman successor as early as 2025, plus Alpine and Lotus will launch their own electric sports car models by 2026.
James Allen
Keyword: Alfa Romeo Spider Electric imagined