Alfa Romeo has delivered its 10,000th car in Australia since its return to the local market in 1998 with the delivery of an Alfa Romeo 147 Selespeed.

"Breaking into five figures is a significant event for Alfa Romeo under the stewardship of Ateco Automotive," says Kevin Wall, General Manager for Alfa Romeo in Australia.  "But we do not plan to spend another five years reaching the 20,000 mark. As well as boosting sales of existing models, this year will start to see the addition of new models that will take Alfa Romeo into either all new sectors of the market and into areas in which it has not competed for many years. The first of these new models will the new Alfa Romeo GT, which will be followed by a four wheel drive version of the Alfa Romeo 156 Sportwagon."

Alfa Romeo returned to Australia in 1998 with the launch of Alfa Romeo's sports cars, the Spider and GTV. These specialist cars allowed Alfa Romeo to establish itself with an all-new dealer group before the arrival of the 1998 European Car of the Year, the Alfa Romeo 156 the following year, which delivered a large step-up in sales volume. This was followed by the range-toping 166 in 2000 and in 2002 another European Car of the Year, the Alfa Romeo 147. The range has also been fleshed out by the high performance GTA models and the Sportwagon version of the Alfa Romeo 156.

Alfa Romeo Australia also made one remarkable purchase with the company becoming the owner of the only Alfa Romeo G1, the very first Alfa Romeo, in existence.

"With the new range in place, new models on the horizon and a stronger than ever dealer group, we plan to set another sales record in 2004," says Kevin Wall. With all these elements of success in place, we could hit 20,000 in a little over half the time it too us to reach 10,000!"