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Alfa Romeo design boss: more retro homages like the 33 Stradale are coming

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Alfa Romeo design boss: more retro homages like the 33 Stradale are coming | Top Gear

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The man in charge of making future Alfas beautiful is happy to take inspiration from the past

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Alfa Romeo design boss: more retro homages like the 33 Stradale are coming

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The man in charge of making future Alfas beautiful is happy to take inspiration from the past

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The man in charge of making future Alfas beautiful is happy to take inspiration from the past

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Alfa Romeo design boss: more retro homages like the 33 Stradale are coming

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Alfa Romeo design boss: more retro homages like the 33 Stradale are coming

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Alfa Romeo design boss: more retro homages like the 33 Stradale are coming

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The man in charge of making future Alfas beautiful is happy to take inspiration from the past

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The 2024 Goodwood Festival of speed was the UK debut of the rather stunning Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale supercar. All 33 examples are sold out, with a 70/30 split in favour of the petrol V6 over the EV version. We spoke to design boss Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos about what’s next on his to-do list.

TG: What’s a more difficult design job: a supercar that pays tribute to a piece of history, or a mainstream car like the Junior?

AM-R: [A supercar is] difficult, but to be honest, sometimes it's more difficult to do a car, which is maybe a small car for everybody. When you do something like [the 33 Stradale] of course you have to pay tribute to the original car, but you don't have certain limitations that you do when you have a car that has to please a lot of people with a lot of things and has financial constraints and so on.

But the teams are the same. The people who actually draw the Junior and the people who draw the 33 are the same people. But it's very rewarding to do a sports car – it’s the ultimate car to design.

What are the challenges of designing a supercar that has to package a combustion engine or batteries?

The constraints are actually very similar because even in an electric car, you have to have the cooling for the batteries. It’s easier to start the project knowing that you have to do both, than if you do [a petrol supercar] then you have to convert it [to electric]. From the beginning we knew that the car will have the two sources of propulsion, two kinds of engine.

Aerodynamically, they work the same, they have to pull the engines, the batteries. So there is no difference between to the two designs – apart from the electric having no exhaust pipes.

Flavio Manzoni, design boss at Ferrari, recently told us his biggest pet peeve is having to incorporate front radars and sensors into his designs. Does that annoy you too?

I agree with Flavio! It’s crazy because it's not only the front of the car, it's also on the side and on the back of the car – the cameras and sensors are everywhere, [and you have to] integrate them in the right position and the surface cannot have anything on the front.

The other big focus is aerodynamics. Because these days we are talking about [battery] range, which is even more important I would say than fuel consumption. So range is very important and every kilometre that we can gain in terms of range, we take it.

So right now you have to focus on low-drag aero, but if there’s a huge breakthrough in battery technology then you can just focus on designing the most beautiful cars possible?

I think we’ll still look for more range. Even if we have in the future, let's say in 20 years time we will have better batteries or more efficient technology, we’ll always look for more range – that pressure is staying with us forever.

Now you’ve done the 33 Stradale, are there other classic Alfas from the company archives you’d like to resurrect?

I can tell you I love the TZ for instance, but I mean our history is amazing.

Three years ago we started to do a car that would be a kind of hallmark, but we don’t do this to do it once and then stop it. We will continue to do this kind of thing, because we have the history, we have the technology and we have shown that we are able to do it with our small team of passionate people in Alfa.

People in the beginning didn't believe we were going to do it. We've done it. The first 33 will be delivered to the customer at the end of the year. The prototype is being built at this this moment. So we'll continue, of course.

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The 2024 Goodwood Festival of speed was the UK debut of the rather stunning Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale supercar. All 33 examples are sold out, with a 70/30 split in favour of the petrol V6 over the EV version. We spoke to design boss Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos about what’s next on his to-do list.

TG: What’s a more difficult design job: a supercar that pays tribute to a piece of history, or a mainstream car like the Junior?

AM-R: [A supercar is] difficult, but to be honest, sometimes it's more difficult to do a car, which is maybe a small car for everybody. When you do something like [the 33 Stradale] of course you have to pay tribute to the original car, but you don't have certain limitations that you do when you have a car that has to please a lot of people with a lot of things and has financial constraints and so on.

But the teams are the same. The people who actually draw the Junior and the people who draw the 33 are the same people. But it's very rewarding to do a sports car – it’s the ultimate car to design.

What are the challenges of designing a supercar that has to package a combustion engine or batteries?

The constraints are actually very similar because even in an electric car, you have to have the cooling for the batteries. It’s easier to start the project knowing that you have to do both, than if you do [a petrol supercar] then you have to convert it [to electric]. From the beginning we knew that the car will have the two sources of propulsion, two kinds of engine.

Aerodynamically, they work the same, they have to pull the engines, the batteries. So there is no difference between to the two designs – apart from the electric having no exhaust pipes.

Flavio Manzoni, design boss at Ferrari, recently told us his biggest pet peeve is having to incorporate front radars and sensors into his designs. Does that annoy you too?

I agree with Flavio! It’s crazy because it's not only the front of the car, it's also on the side and on the back of the car – the cameras and sensors are everywhere, [and you have to] integrate them in the right position and the surface cannot have anything on the front.

The other big focus is aerodynamics. Because these days we are talking about [battery] range, which is even more important I would say than fuel consumption. So range is very important and every kilometre that we can gain in terms of range, we take it.

So right now you have to focus on low-drag aero, but if there’s a huge breakthrough in battery technology then you can just focus on designing the most beautiful cars possible?

I think we’ll still look for more range. Even if we have in the future, let's say in 20 years time we will have better batteries or more efficient technology, we’ll always look for more range – that pressure is staying with us forever.

Now you’ve done the 33 Stradale, are there other classic Alfas from the company archives you’d like to resurrect?

I can tell you I love the TZ for instance, but I mean our history is amazing.

Three years ago we started to do a car that would be a kind of hallmark, but we don’t do this to do it once and then stop it. We will continue to do this kind of thing, because we have the history, we have the technology and we have shown that we are able to do it with our small team of passionate people in Alfa.

People in the beginning didn't believe we were going to do it. We've done it. The first 33 will be delivered to the customer at the end of the year. The prototype is being built at this this moment. So we'll continue, of course.

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The man in charge of making future Alfas beautiful is happy to take inspiration from the past