Alfa Romeo’s stunning 33 Stradale unashamedly borrows heavily from its 1960s namesake, but that’s not the only Alfa past master that donates styling details. There’s also a little bit of the company’s 75 sedan in there, too.
The 75, or the Milano, as it was known in the U.S. is a boxy 1980s precursor to the modern Giulia. It handled well thanks to its rear transaxle layout, and some got the gorgeous Busso V6, but that weird kink in the body between the rear door and trunk area always made it look like it had just been rear-ended in a highway pile-up.
So it’s fortunate that the there are no references to the 75 in the exterior design that we can see. But there is one inside. The 75 had two distinct interior design quirks, the first being a U-shaped parking brake between the front seats where you’d expect to find it, and the second was pair of electric window switches on the roof, where you definitely wouldn’t. There’s no sign of a U-shaped parking brake inside the 33’s retro cabin, but one of the cool interior details is its overhead console, and that console is home to a pair of window switches.
Related: Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale Pays Tribute To Alfa’s Original Supercar
We’re guessing it’s an in-joke for Alfa Romeo fans and there’s no suggestion that Alfa is about to make that switch layout standard for its new cars heading to Europe and the U.S. in the next few years. But we know the 33 is dropping hints about other design features that will make their way onto mainstream production cars.
An Alfa source told Carscoops that the shape of the front hood just above the badge would be seen again on cars coming through soon, and it’s not hard to imagine how the Alfa Romeo shield, which is created in 3D out of the grille slats on the 33, could be illustrated electronically on a fully digital grille a few years from now.
