► It’s got Alfa Romeo’s badge and looks
► But after the controversy of where it’s built…
► …is there anything Italian about the Junior?
Last year, the morning after Alfa Romeo launched its new Milano, Italy’s industry minister Adolfo Urso expressed his outrage. The government had known for months that the car was being built in Poland but Urso pantomimed his full, pearl-clutching horror.
‘A car called Milano cannot be produced in Poland!’ he fumed. ‘This is forbidden by Italian law!’ (He was referring to new EU legislation, designed to prohibit ‘evocative’ or ‘Italian sounding’ products that aren’t actually made in Italy.) ‘A car called Milano must be produced in Italy! Otherwise, it gives a misleading indication!’
This struck me as weird. Arguably, calling it an Alfa Romeo is a pretty big indication that it’s from Italy, and most people probably don’t even realise Milano refers to a city (‘Isn’t that a football club?’). But two days later, Alfa backed down and renamed the car.
‘Although we think the Milano name met all legal requirements, we took the decision to change it to Junior to ease relations with the Italian government,’ Alfa’s then-CEO, Jean-Philippe Imperato, told the press.
Which again got me blinking with confusion. Wait a minute – did you just say you’re calling it the Alfa Romeo Junior to make sure it DOESN’T sound Italian? Bu.. eh… wha…?? I can’t think of a name that sounds MORE Italian than the gloriously lyrical, roll-off-the-tongue Alfa Junior. The original GT Junior – a smaller-capacity, 1.3-litre version of the 105 Coupe – was launched in 1965, so it’s been a legendary part of Alfa’s heritage for 60 years now. Sophia Loren downing a mug of Prosecco while sitting in a gondola wouldn’t be any more Italian than an Alfa Junior.
Ah – but would it? Maybe Urso the angry minister is right – maybe we’re being duped? Maybe the new Junior really is just a rebadged, pan-European Stellantis platform – more Jeep Avenger than Giulia Sprint? Maybe Alfa is trolling us with a postcard of the Colosseum but with a Polish postage stamp! Clearly we need to put it to the test – a stress-test of really Italian, Made in Italy Italianness. In Italy.
So, is there anything more Italian than mamma’s traditional spaghetti bolognese, poured lovingly from a jar with a lashings of cheese on top? Turns out there is.
We arrive in Bologna on a sharp, cold winter’s day and I immediately fall in love with the new Junior’s styling. Seeing it on the street, riding on its spectacular 20-inch Venti alloys, it looks sensational, all the way from that unusual cut-out grille to its pert, cut-off tail. This is the top-of-the-range Veloce model, fully electric, 276bhp and priced at a heady £42,295. Add in an optional paint finish, parking cameras and the Sport pack (more about that later) and you’re quickly approaching £48k – quite a premium over the standard Junior Elettrica, which starts at £33,800.
But Alfa’s made a lot of changes to warrant that price hike: as well as the extra power, the Veloce also gets lower suspension, upgraded brakes, quicker steering and a Torsen limited-slip diff.
If you’ve never been to Bologna before it’s a beautiful city, full of palazzos and squares, colonnaded streets and tiny one-way alleys. Imagine Venice, if someone drained it. Many of the buildings are painted a warm, pinkish ochre (its nickname is Bologna La Rossa) and our Brera Red Junior looks a million dollars on every street corner. The locals love it, in a way I’m sure they wouldn’t love a Kia or a Renault.
The Junior is brilliant down these narrow streets. Of course the power delivery from the single e-motor is instant and satisfying, but also the steering is very direct, around two and a half turns lock-to-lock, making the car feel razor sharp and alert. It’s quite stiffly sprung on those low-profile Michelins, but its never crashy or aggravating over Bologna’s many historic, Renaissance-era potholes.
We drive through town to a small but renowned restaurant called De Cesari, a couple of streets away from the main Piazza Maggiore and its famous Neptune fountain. Opened in 1955 by Ilario Cesari, this small, dark-panelled eatery remains virtually unchanged, 70 years later. Still family owned, it’s now run by Ilario’s grown-up grandkids, Riccardo and Valentina.
We’re here, of course, for the Bolognese, Bolognese style, which De Cesari has been making the same way for generations. When Riccardo serves me the small bowl of deliciousness, it turns out everything we think we know about this Italian classic is wrong – even the spag part of spag bol, because it should be served with tagliatelli (in this case, hand-made and surprisingly al dente). And the sauce, so meltingly smooth, is like a dark brown meaty paste with no tomato. I’m about to ask for ketchup but after a first mouthful I’m tempted instead to ask for seconds and have another bowl double-parked. Sitting in this packed restaurant, full of locals, I’m ready to believe this simple dish might actually be the most Italian thing ever.
Heading out of Bologna after lunch we drive south into Tuscany, with its medieval villages and fairytale landscapes. We drive up into the rolling hills of the Apennines and find some amazing, empty roads, ribbons of asphalt that look like they were designed by God for a Ferrari Dino.
Sadly, the new Alfa Junior is no Dino. Don’t get me wrong, compared to its cousins on the same platform (the Jeep Avenger, Fiat 600e, Vauxhall Mokka) the Veloce makes a really good fist of it. It’s quick enough, sprinting to 62mph in six seconds, and it has that willingness to change direction, but when you really press on, the limitations start to show. The steering – so good in the city – is disappointing. Get on the throttle early as you exit a corner and that front diff may prevent you from skittering off into a ditch, but it can’t stop the 254lb ft of torque mangling the steering feel, as the wheel tightens and convulses in your hands. The brakes too – Sport mode disables the regen braking, leaving the job to those beefed-up discs and calipers, but the pedal feel is still long-travel and inconsistent.
Altogether, the Veloce feels out of its comfort zone in what should be hot-hatch heaven. Alfa boasts about the car’s 1635kg weight – which may be less than some competitors, but we need a sense of proportion. A Peugeot 205 GTI back in the 1990s weighed under 900kg; a Mk5 VW Golf GTI in 2003 was 1300kg… Things are just getting heavier, and as Galileo Galilei once said, there’s no escaping physics.
The best thing to do, then, is back off to seven-tenths and just enjoy the scenery. Ooh look, cypress trees! It’s like we’re in a scene from Gladiator.
We arrive on the outskirts of Florence and charge the car overnight. At 54kWh, the Junior’s battery isn’t huge and I work out we’ve done just 96 miles that day, draining down from 100 per cent to a quarter full. That gives us a theoretical range of just 130 miles – a lot less than the 200 miles Alfa claims. Maybe cold weather and some hard driving have had an effect, but it’s clear the Junior is no long-distance cruiser. Thankfully the hotel charger works (meno male! as they say in Italy) and four hours later we’re back to full capacity at a cost of €33 (£28, around 29p per mile).
Next morning we drive into Florence, a short journey but one fraught with some Byzantine administrative stress these days. Since the summer of 2024 this beautiful city has been protected by what they call the scudo verde or green shield. More than a congestion zone, this is a no-go area for cars, monitored by cameras and strictly enforced. If you’re not a resident, driving into the Zona a Traffico Limitato or ZTL during the day will mean a swift fine, and figures swirling around the internet suggest the city is pocketing £25 million a year from hapless drivers.
There are a couple of ways round it: if you book a rental car or stay in a hotel inside the ZTL you get a few hours’ grace; or you can drive into the city in the evenings or on a Sunday. (For our photo shoot we applied to the city and got an exemption for the day, which cost the princely sum of €5.)
Early next day we drive the Junior down to the River Arno and watch the sun rise over Florence’s bridges. Old Florence, like Bologna, is a maze of tiny one-way streets, and once again the Junior’s instant punch of torque and quick steering make the Veloce a pleasure to drive, squirting down alleyways and wedging its way into traffic.
I was going to tell you more about the Sport pack. For £2200 you get a bit of extra alcantara on your steering wheel, plus different pedals, kick plates and some nice mats, but more importantly you get quasi-bucket seats by Italian motorsport supplier Sabelt. The option is expensive, I grant you, but these seats are superb – high-bolstered, rib-stitched and supportive, and they raise the interior ambience to proper Italian stallion levels.
Given that driving is so tightly controlled in the old town, the city is still rammed with traffic and it seems to come at you from every direction, like you’re permanently trapped on a deranged, two-way Arc de Triomphe roundabout.
Time, then, to have the most Italian experience of all. There are lots of scooter rental companies across Florence, and I rent a classic Vespa 125 from a small local firm, Tuscany By Car. It costs £50 a day, including helmet, and on two wheels you’re free to roam the ZTL. Scooters are everywhere in the city, lining up at traffic lights and criss-crossing every street. After five minutes it’s clear why. Oh, the freedom! The Junior can’t compete with this, no matter how quick the steering. The Vespa’s easy twist-and-go controls, the buzzy engine and the feeling that you’re not just spectating, you’re part of the city, it all puts a massive smile on my face. The scooter immerses you in the chaos, a world with no meaningful lanes, road signs are ignored and even one-way streets are a matter of opinion.
While the scooter is allowed in the ZTL, the pedestrian heart of the city is off limits so I park up kerbside (so easy!) and walk into the main Piazza della Signoria. Nearby, tucked down an alleyway, is Perche No! – one of the oldest and most famous gelaterias in Florence. Ice cream was invented in Florence back in the 1500s, when Cosimo Ruggeri, court astrologer and magician, was challenged by Catherine de’ Medici to create an unforgettable dish. His frozen cream, Fior di Latte was so astonishing, it soon led to the Cornetto.
In the intervening 500 years, however, Florence has refined Ruggeri’s recipe into the modern day gelato. Literally, nothing tastes more Italian than this, which is why – for research purposes – I’m about to eat a bucketload of it.
Perche No! (which means Why Not!) has been going since 1939, and in the tiny store we’re served by the patriarch of this family-owned business, Ciro Cammilli. ‘All our gelato is home-made, fresh, every morning,’ Ciro reassures me as I scan the bright colours. ‘We only use the best ingredients – the pistachios come from Sicily, for example. The best!’
In the end, I try the rich Crema Fiorentina, then the Pistachio (which is sensational) and then the honey and sesame, the Fiordilatte con Miele y Sesamo. And then I go back for more, for a cup of your classic, milk-and-chocolate Stracciatella. All of it tastes so light and smooth in a way that factory-made ice creams don’t. ‘The secret to gelato…’ Ciro tells me, ‘…after you have eaten, you count to 10 and then your mouth should feel clean.’
It’s so delicious and more-ish I want to sample all 26 flavours, but the day is drawing to a close and I don’t want to puke on my Vespa. So we’re soon back in the Alfa and mulling over the big question: just how Italian is this car?
Well, the worst thing about the Junior is the price. I checked, and a few short years ago the last small Alfa hatchback, the Mito, cost less than £19k. Electric cars are stupidly expensive.
But if you accept that rampant, liver-filleting inflation is just a fact of modern life, the Junior holds up very well. It really does feel Italian, as though the team who did the Giulia and Stelvio really did develop this car too. While its battery weight might limit the fun, there’s something irrepressibly spirited and stylish about the Veloce – it feels zingy and confident like an Italian car should.
So ignore the fact it’s built in Poland – the whole Made In Italy argument is out of date. These days, your iPhone is made in China, Branston Pickle is owned by the Japanese and AC Milan, the legendary football team, is owned by Americans. To use the Italian industry minister’s phrase, the world is full of misleading indications. But I reckon the Alfa Junior is the real deal.
Alfa Junior Veloce
- Price: £42,295 (£47,595 as tested)
- Powertrain: 54kWh battery, single e-motor, front-wheel drive
- Performance: 276bhp, 254Ib ft, 6.0sec 0-62mph, 124mph
- Weight: 1635kg
- Efficiency: 3.3 miles per kWh (official), 2.2 miles per kWh (tested), 200-mile range (official), 130 miles (tested) 0g/km CO2
- On sale: Now