Pininfarina reveals its Alfa Romeo Spider for the 21st Century
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Pininfarina's 2uettottanta Concept
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Alfa Romeo
5th March, 2010
To mark its own 80th anniversary and to celebrate Alfa
Romeo’s 100th anniversary, Pininfarinia has released at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show its proposal for a
new Alfa Romeo Spider, one of the models that has defined Alfa Romeo for more than half its history and
in which Pininfarina has had a strong guiding hand.
The Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta Concept is designed to be exciting and a delight to drive, for drivers
looking for a mixture of extrovert entertainment, and the pleasure of life in the open air.
The name, 2uettottanta, evokes the legendary Alfa Romeo Spider Duetto but also a very Italian
product, which has become an export brand, representing the inexhaustible talent that the world
associates with Italy.
The Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta Concept reflects Pininfarina's determination to look to the future with
optimism following tradition, restating its excellence in design and its acknowledged capacity for
aesthetic and technological innovation. It is a concept that represents an innovative approach,
projected into the third millennium, to a topic that is firmly rooted in Pininfarina history, the
2-seater spider. And like the best Alfa Romeo sports cars to come from Pininfarina's pencil, the Alfa
Romeo 2uettottanta Concept exalts the driving experience and concentrates on the excitement of being at
the wheel of an open car with a great aesthetic personality.
The Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta Concept is also a tribute to Alfa Romeo, which celebrates its centenary
in 2010: the alliance between Alfa Romeo and Pininfarina is one of the most significant and durable in
the history of the car, one of men and of passion, of design and cutting-edge technical solutions,
which has generated an inestimable number of good-looking, innovative cars with plenty of temperament
but with a predilection for sports cars and convertibles. The aim is to replicate all this with the
Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta Concept. So a clean, elegant line was chosen for this "simple 2-seater", which
is proposed with a 1,750 cc turbo engine positioned longitudinally, an obvious reference to the "1750
Veloce" of 1968, one of the many versions derived from the famous "Osso di Seppia" (Cuttlefish). With
its red bodywork, inspired by the typical Alfa Romeo paintwork, the 2uettottanta is 1,797 mm wide,
4,212.6 mm long, 1,280 mm high and has a wheelbase of 2,500 mm.
The pleasure of driving and feeling in harmony with nature is transformed into light, sleek,
refined volumes, and shapes that seem to slip through the air easily. This generates the theme of
this concept: the expression of a single volume, which is some way from the ground and suspended. The
Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta Concept almost seems to lift up from the ground "going further". It is an
optical effect achieved thanks to a line that crosses the whole car horizontally. An uninterrupted
sign applied to dynamic, sporty proportions - typical of Alfa Romeo spiders - accentuated by the
configuration of the passenger compartment, which is shifted significantly to the rear. The force of
the design lies in its exaltation of simplicity, which does not need to show its 'muscles' but
concentrates purely on agility and harmony.
The front-end of the Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta Concept underlines its true Alfa Romeo character. The
design is simple, with a central line that runs smoothly along the nose of the car, while the
execution of the surfaces is more sophisticated. At the centre, in full view, and anything but a
purely decorative element, is the Alfa Romeo shield, which seems to emerge from the heart of the car
and to stretch outwards, in Pininfarina's futuristic, three-dimensional approach. The shield is made
of aluminium and incorporates floating horizontal flaps. On either side are the two triangular
lateral air intakes. The two elements impressed on the imposing bonnet provide a natural link
between the logo and the large windscreen, which has been designed as a ring in hand-beaten
aluminium that emerges from the body of the car without interrupting its flow. The front headlights,
which adopt the latest LED technologies, are embedded under the line that gives the whole car its
character. A strip of carbon in the lower part of the front acts as an air splitter, channelling the
air to the rear end of the car.
The side view of the car, where the theme of the single volume is repeated, highlights the flowing
line of the whole, with the shapes merging naturally. The horizontal line "cut" into the sides gives
a sense of great dynamism; it starts from the front wheelarch and extends back to the rear wheel.
Like an athlete, for a car, being slim also means achieving aerodynamic efficiency. Pininfarina has
always strived for natural shapes that can convey efficiency and respect of the environment, an
approach confirmed by its great commitment to the theme of eco-sustainable mobility. The Alfa Romeo
2uettottanta Concept is in perfect harmony with nature, becoming the formal expression of a response
to the needs of our day: it is an arrow that flies through the wind almost without encountering
resistance.
Smooth, essential, soft surfaces even at the rear, which echoes the front, albeit with slightly
more emphasis on the 'muscles'. The design combines stylistic simplicity with a strong character in
the volumes and proportions, with details designed to underline the car's dynamic, light
personality. The two bumps seem to emerge from the volume, becoming floating wings that provide the
roll-over bars behind the seats. At either end, these bars generate an appendix designed to hold the
seat belts. Even at the rear, the light clusters are slender and embedded under the line that
defines the whole section.
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Great attention went into the design of the interior. The result is a spacious, comfortable
passenger compartment, conceived with light, dynamic volumes, which envelop the occupants in a
strong, reassuring embrace. The shapes are sewn into the leather, incorporating the touch controls:
in its functions, the Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta Concept is faithful to its vocation as a car designed
to be a delight to drive. The facia extends fluidly to the sides merging into the doorway as the
natural continuation of the volume of the car, thus providing a perfect symbiosis between exterior
and interior. The dashboard has a driver-oriented configuration with an innovative approach to the
classical circular Alfa Romeo "tubes" that contain the instruments. The tunnel contains the Alfa
'DNA' gear selector in an ergonomic position; this varies the set-up of the car in three modes,
Dynamic, Normal and All Weather, adapting the behaviour of the various systems on the vehicle
(engine, transmission, suspension, steering, brakes, etc.) to the demands of the driver and the
different driving conditions. The tunnel runs through the passenger compartment and it gives
structure to the chassis, revealing the carbon elements: the choice of this material reflects
Pininfarina's constant research into alternative materials that can make vehicles lighter,
reducing consumption and emissions. Another strong element of the interior is the steering wheel,
which is a modern interpretation of the Duetto's perforated three-spoke wheel, with the addition
of a shift paddle for sequential control of the dual-clutch gearbox. An enjoyable drive and
comfort are also guaranteed by the anatomical sporty seats.
The size and design of the tyres, which were made specifically for the Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta
Concept in collaboration with Dunlop, accentuate the impression of strong character and force
given by the car. The tyres are of the low profile type, right on the extreme edges of the plane
view: designed by Pininfarina to incorporate the innovative technologies developed by Dunlop,
their graphics reflect those of the car. Their aerodynamic shape and very smooth lateral profile,
guarantee better roadholding and less resistance to air, thus reducing consumption. The rims are
treated in aluminium in harmony with the rest of the car, and are a free interpretation of the
classic five-circle Alfa Romeo pattern, revealing the high performance Alfa Romeo brakes by Brembo.
The Alfa Romeo 2uettottanta Concept is not a pure styling exercise, but also a project and research:
the goal is to grasp the spirit of the spider in the configuration, the proportions and the conception
of the car as well as in its stylistic imprint. This working method is part of Pininfarina's genes. For
this project, the Pininfarina team were given carte blanche to express the values inherent in the Alfa
spider "by Pininfarina", the values that are deemed to have made the Giulietta Spider or the Duetto
all-time classics. To achieve this result, 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.
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