Pininfarina – Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta concept, Mamma Mia!

Pininfarina Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta Concept Red Car Photo

2010 Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta Car Front

Well known Italian design house Pininfarina, is celebrating eight decades of sprinkling Italian passion on the world’s best cars. Set-up as Società anonima Carrozzeria Pinin Farina in 1930, Pininfarina has designed cars for Ferrari, Rolls Royce, Lancia and Alfa Romeo.

To mark this occasion in design history, Pininfarina has unveiled the Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta concept at the Geneva show this year. The 2uettottanta nomenclature evokes the legendary Alfa Romeo Duetto roadster. Why Alfa Romeo? Well, the Italian marque is celebrating its centenary in 2010.Looking at the 2uettottanta, the design looks as cool as Italian frappe. The lines are faint and elegant merging with the curves. Under hood is a proposed 1.7-litre turbocharged straight. And oh my word isn’t she a beauty.

2010 Pininfarina Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta Car Interiors

2010 Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta Car Interiors

There is a whole barrage of blah that’s following about how the 2uettottanta is a taste of the future with a whiff of the past. Frankly, we can’t blame you if you skip to the pictures, just remember to breathe.

Key design elements include Alfa red paintwork, svelte Alfa design flow, iconic Alfa grille, LED headlamps buried beneath the bonnet and roll-over bars that are contained in two bumps that rise from the tail to become ‘floating wings’ behind the occupants.

“Great attention went into the design of the interior”, Pininfarina says, and the result is described as “a spacious, comfortable passenger compartment, conceived with light, dynamic volumes, which envelop the occupants in a strong, reassuring embrace.”

The facia blends into the doors, while the dashboard has a driver-oriented configuration with an innovative approach to the classical circular Alfa ‘tubes’ that contain the instruments. The centre tunnel contains the Alfa DNA gear selector, and the runs through the passenger compartment giving structure to the chassis. The steering wheel, which is a modern interpretation of the Duetto’s perforated three-spoke wheel, has a shift paddle for sequential control of the dual-clutch gearbox.

Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta Car Rear

The 2uettottanta is not a pure styling exercise, but also a research project for which Pininfarina says its creative team were given carte blanche to express the values inherent in the Alfa spider ‘by Pininfarina’, and which made the Giulietta Spider or the Duetto all-time classics.

To that end, the car was given a particular set-up with a low centre of gravity and a passenger compartment that is very exposed, so as not to isolate the occupants from the surrounding environment. The result is to bring the road ‘nearer’ to the eyes of the driver and to increase the sense of dynamism even at low speed.

With this load of concept designing ideas fitted into one, the car is doubtful to see light of production day. I won’t be surprised if she does get into limited number production though, the Italians are a feverish lot.