Now that the roadster co-developed by Mazda and Fiat won’t bear an Alfa Romeo badge, we were wondering what they were going to call it and how they were going to pitch it.
Well, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne confirmed that the roadster will be called 124 Spider. He did not say whether it will be Fiat- or Abarth-badged, but AutoExpress speculates that they will have different versions and use both names.
The 124 is believed to be in the pipeline to launch exactly one year after the MX-5 takes center stage (that’s this year), so we could see it debut in 2016. Apparently, they’re even going to sell the model in the US, as a recent patent filing would suggest.
Interestingly, the idea of an Alfa Romeo roadster is not dead. The same source quotes an unnamed insider who allegedly said “all Alfa Romeos need to be 100 percent Italian.”
Additionally, the MiTo and Giulietta will be kept in the range, despite the planned shift towards rear-driven platforms, but there’s a chance the latter could be turned into a rear-wheel drive model. This would finally take the fight to the BMW 1-Series, as there are no other models on the market currently able to match it in a package that size.
All of the above confirms previous rumors.
Note: Classic 1975 Fiat 124 Spider pictured
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