"It is also pure and beautiful, with the value and style of beauty,
Usually you can feel this beauty at a glance, and you will be right
Our models fell in love at first sight, and this timeless one is new
Design is what characterizes Alfa Romeo. ”
Written by Qin Shaojie Typography Tong Wei
How will Alfa Romeo embrace the trend of electrification in the future and maintain the personality and uniqueness of our brand in design?
Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos: Alfa Romeo's pure driving pleasure also reflects great handling flexibility, unique aesthetics, style and lifestyle. I think all of the elements mentioned above will be preserved in the future. This is true both in electric vehicles and fuel vehicles. In fact, what changes the two is the engine, but the essence of our brand will not change. This is also taken to heart by our designers and engineers. I think driving different cars will also bring different pleasures, and the experience of driving an electric car is also very good, and it can be full of sports.
How does the design aesthetic of the Italian brand Alfa Romeo manifest itself in every model? What is your favorite car?
Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos: The essence of Alpha Romeo is design, dedicated to delivering a very impactful visual experience. It is also pure and beautiful, with the value and style of beauty, usually you can feel this beauty at a glance, you will fall in love with our models at first sight, this timeless design is the characteristic of Alpha Romeo. In the new era, we will not only retain our design aesthetics and design principles, but also actively embrace the era of electrification, and will also inject enough modernity into the brand.
Our designers and engineers will uphold this concept, bring the values and concepts of our designs to the owners, be able to better actively embrace the new era, can become more modern and avant-garde, and of course we will add Italian elements to achieve a very good balance between beauty and modernity.
If we go to the museum of our models and we see a series of very outstanding cars, if you ask me to pick one, I may change my opinion every week, if I have to choose a favorite car is the Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Touring Berlinetta. Born in 1958, this car is a collection of elements, including beauty as well as speed, including our design philosophy and aerodynamics. It was also a very bold and disruptive model at the time.
Of course, I also want to emphasize that I actually love every model of Alfa Romeo deeply, and there are different reasons behind the love of each model.
What are the biggest features of Italian design, represented by Alfa Romeo, compared with German cars or British cars?
Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos: Actually, for designers, we are exposed to the aesthetics of different designs. Taking the German car as an example, I think the beauty or charm of the German car is more rational. So for Italian models, our beauty may come from intuition, it will bring you a feeling of love at first sight, you will fall in love with it as soon as you see it, this is the Italian aesthetic. The same goes for Alfa Romeo, and you'll fall in love with our brand, our aesthetics and design. I think that's where the value of design lies. The first moment you see it, you want to own the car, no matter what the cost. Therefore, such an aesthetic brings us emotional fluctuations that are more direct. Then the design of this kind of car of the German system, its aesthetic may be more calm and rational.
Under the new group, the Alfa Romeo brand is ready to be built into a luxury brand, from a design point of view, how to reflect the positioning of This high-end brand of Alfa Romeo in the future?
Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos: Indeed, we are also very honored to be part of the Stellantis Group. As a global luxury brand positioning, we also hope to be able to better bring the tone of our luxury brand to our customers, our car owners, because we are also a luxury brand that carefully selects products.
I think we can now be closer to our consumers, and I think the Stellantis Group is also a perfect family, we have everything in this big family, we have a long history, we are a timeless brand, we can better use the advanced technology of the Stellantis Group.
At the same time, we also have many brothers and sisters in this big family, we can share a lot of valuable things with them, and we also have our own positioning in this big family, all in all, we think it is very perfect to join this big family.
Alfa Romeo has a very good performance in terms of performance, such as GTA and GTAm, but it does not look so strong visual impact, what aspects of design are more important in highlighting performance?
Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos: As a designer, our job is to show people how the car looks, to better reflect its true performance, such as the high-performance models you just mentioned, and the owner must be full of fun to drive. So as a designer, we want to make this model look from the perspective of appearance, and indeed be able to convey or explain its different high values, just like the high-performance car you just mentioned, to reflect the feeling of galloping, its flexible handling, its light pleasure and driving performance and so on.
On the other hand, we want to adapt our design to the positioning of the car, as well as the intrinsic value embodied in it, of course, we also have a lot of high-tech behind it as a support, so that the design and performance are more adaptable and coordinated, so that everyone can feel that what you see is what you get.
For example, GTA and GTAm, these two models of engines are very powerful, its displacement is very large, to be able to make our engine breathe better, can bring better and stronger dynamics. Also, in terms of the lightweight of the body, we can see that the parts used in the body, as well as the parts including the air intakes, are made of carbon fiber, which can add bricks to our lightweight performance, and we have used new technologies in these aspects, which I call "black technology". Whether it's a new design concept or the use of new materials, we can guarantee that our engine is very powerful and can achieve its performance.