In revealing the stunning 33 Stradale last week Alfa Romeo went some way towards levelling an old score. The $2m hypercar is loosely based on sister brand Maserati’s MC20, and it seems kind of odd that it’s Alfa and not Maserati – the supposedly more high-end Stellantis outfit – that’s getting to produce it.
Can you imagine Porsche sitting back and watching while Audi sold a multi-million dollar hypercar that was faster than anything the Stuttgart boys were allowed to make by parent company VW? True, Maserati recently revealed its own limited-edition hypercar based on the MC20, the MCXtrema, but that’s a track-only machine, costs just over half as much ($1.2m vs a rumored $2m), will be twice as numerous as the Stradale (62 units vs 33) and is 20 times less visually memorable.
Essentially, Alfa Romeo got Stellantis’s go-ahead to make the MC20 spinoff that people will care about and still be talking about years down the line. And we can only assume that Maserati is privately fuming about this, whatever it claims to feel about the Stradale publically. Reading between the lines of comments made by senior Alfa Romeo execs to Carscoops, the trident brand is less than ecstatic about the 33 Stradale, and who can blame it?
Related: New Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale Pays Tribute To Alfa’s Original Supercar
But then Maserati knows it can’t grumble too much, because it stole the MC20 from Alfa in the first place. The mid-engined junior supercar was conceived as an Alfa Romeo 8C in the late 2010s, but was repurposed as a Maserati for production. And Maserati’s 3.0-liter Nettuno V6 in the ICE-powered version of the MC20 is actually very closely related to the 2.9-liter V6 used in cars like the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, which itself is related to the F154 Ferrari V8.
The 33 is available with both combustion and electric power and Alfa claims the 33’s engine, which makes 612 hp (620 PS), is an ‘enhanced’ version of the 503 hp (510 PS) Quadrifoglio motor. But is it really? Or is it the MC20’s Nettuno V6, which already makes 621 hp (630 PS) and is already connected to an eight-speed dual clutch transmission? It’s hard to believe that Alfa would go to the trouble of hopping up its own V6 when the result is going to be almost the exact same output as Maserati’s off-the-shelf motor already produces. Technical details for the 33’s engine are few and far between and images are non existent, so we’ll have to wait a little longer to find out exactly how much Alfa content there is under that beautiful skin.
Stellantis boss Carlos Tavares obviously believes Alfa can make the 33 without treading on Maserati’s toes, but do you think the Stradale’s existence undermines Maserati’s credibility?