Alfa Romeo hit its peak in post-war Europe, dominating the start of Formula 1 and following up with a string of brilliant and beautiful sports cars, coupes, and the epic and recently resurrected, Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale supercar – a road-going version of a race car, at the tail end of the 1960s. Since the 1970s, Alfa has struggled and, valiantly at times, tried to return to its sports car roots and greatness.One of those times was in 2008, when a proposal arrived for a small mid-engine roadster directly aimed at the Porsche Boxster. Now we get to see it, thanks to former Alfa Romeo designer, Juan Manuel Diaz. Mid-Engine Goodness Juan Manuel Diaz / Instagram Not long ago, Diaz showed off what the Mazda MX-5-based modern Alfa Romeo Duetto would have looked like. Ultimately, Fiat, Alfa Romeo's parent company, used the MX-5 platform for the Fiat 124. But Alfa was now looking at competing with Porsche and Audi. Specifically, in this case and according to Diaz, "competing with the beauty and precision of the Porsche Boxster."At this point, Alfa Romeo had been owned by Fiat since 1986, which also bought Maserati back from Ferrari in 2005. Fiat was looking to clearly delineate between the three brands. Maserati was positioned as the more exclusive company, with Fiat being the affordable brand and Alfa Romeo somewhere in between. Definitely Not An MX-5 Roger Biermann / CarBuzz / Valnet Alfa Romeo was clearly considering something much more bespoke than taking another automaker's chassis and adding a spin to it. At this point, the brand was heavily invested in sedans, sporty coupes, and whatever the MiTo was. Alfa was leaning heavily on Fiat and Lancia platforms (hence the awkward Fiat Grand Punto-based MiTo hatchback designed by Diaz). It took some time after Diaz penned these bold sports car designs for Alfa to build something from the ground up that was small, lightweight, and with a mid-mounted engine.The mid-engine dream was realized when the Alfa Romeo 4C went into production in 2013, followed by the Spider version in 2015. It was designed in-house under Marco Tencone and Lorenzo Ramaciotti, all after Diaz left the brand in 2009. However, it was far from a Porsche Boxster competitor with only a maximum of 3,500 units per year being built. That was due to the carbon-fiber chassis, and less in part to a new all-aluminum 1.8-liter turbocharged engine making 237 horsepower while weighing barely anything.It's a shame Alfa is still struggling, as it's a brand that should be competing directly with Porsche in the sports car space. A relatively affordable, fully-Italian sports car has been sorely missing from the world for too long. As it stands, the French brand, Alpine, is doing what Alfa should have been for a long time. And, Alpine is looking more and more like it's going to get the Alpine A110 into the US.There's some irony at play here, too. The European automaker Renault owns Alpine, while Alfa Romeo is owned by Stellantis and is grouped under the conglomerate's North American division.Source: manudiaz74 / Instagram