The Fiat 124, an Italian take on the Mazda Miata, was a handsome roadster with the turbo engine Mazda wouldn't offer. But it turns out that we were robbed of what would have been the real one to have. Juan Manual Diaz, a former designer for Alfa Romeo, recently shared several of his sketches and renderings that show what that Miata-based Alfa Duetto could have looked like. It's enough to bring a tear to your eye on this – or any – day. Alfa Was Looking At Mazda Long Before Fiat's 124 Juan Manuel Diaz / Instagram "When I arrived at Alfa Romeo, the design team had already completed a series of proposals based on the Mazda MX-5 platform, exploring the possibility of relaunching the Duetto," Diaz said in a post to Instagram. "Seeing that work ignited something in me."Diaz has been an automotive designer for a long time. He's currently at Renault-backed design startup BeyonCa, and for a decade before that he was at Audi. From 2002 to 2009, he was a designer at Alfa Romeo, including a year as head of design for the Italian company.Check out The Drop at our companion site HotCars for a chance to win the Vyper Elite Trio Package, a premium set of garage chairs!The images he posted range from an early sketch of the potential car created in 2004 to renderings that look ready for production. Each one just feels mean today, a look at what we missed out on. Especially when you consider that 2004 means this would have been based on the upcoming 2005-2015 NC-chassis Miata, considered by some to be the ugliest Miata so far.Diaz says he became obsessed with the idea. "What started as internal design exercises soon became something more personal. After work, I would go home and keep sketching. Night after night. Refining proportions, searching for the right balance between heritage and modernity. I wasn’t just designing a car – I was designing the one I dreamed of driving."He and Alfa looked at vehicles using the 8C as a base. Even creating a full-sized model before going in another direction and creating the 8C Spider. A mid-engine model was on the table, and Diaz says he'll share that one in a coming post. Designs Were 'About A Belief' For now, then, enjoy the sweet, curving lines of an Alfa Romeo roadster. Whatever the brand's problems are, design has absolutely never been one of them. This car, with Miata bones, could have taken care of the reliability concern, too, though that didn't seem to help the modern Fiat 124 all that much.Diaz describes his work on that car as not being about a particular car or project. Instead, it was "about a belief.""Alfa Romeo’s strength has always been in compact, expressive, lightweight performance cars," he said. "Sometimes brands evolve by expanding. Sometimes they evolve by returning to their essence. And sometimes, the car you keep sketching for years is the one that defines your vision as a designer."We can't help but think that if Alfa had put out more vehicles like this, it would be in much better shape now and not seemingly on the edge of the abyss year after year. Though putting out more vehicles period, in a timely manner, would probably have had a similar effect. Here's to what could have been.