After a 13 year absence, Alfa Romeo will return to the United States with its Competizione sports car. It's a lovely machine, to be sure, but with an estimated price tag of $200,000, it won't exactly have a pronounced presence in the U.S. Alfa currently plans to sell it through select Maserati dealerships.
But company officials have been flirting with the idea of bringing the BMW Mini killer, Mi To (shorthand for the cities of Milan and Turin) stateside. The company has recently launched an interactive blog for the car. It has already received more than 3,500 posts worldwide. If this is any indication of the excitement surrounding the Mi To, it's success in the United States is all but assured.
The question is whether Alfa Romeo would rebuild a network of dealerships in the U.S. It was hounded from the country in 1995, thanks to its reputation for poor quality. Fiat, which owns both Alfa Romeo and Maserati, has been scouting for partners in the U.S., and is potentially looking to build cars here in order to avoid the harsh penalty of a falling dollar.
The Mi To will arrive in European showrooms this year at a price of about $25,000.
See video after the jump.
Photo: Alfa Romeo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krR8XReXcB4
