Auto News 5

Alfa Romeo, the Italian brand known to car enthusiasts but a deep secret to most Americans, celebrates its 100th birthday on June 24th. Preparations are underway for Alfa to return to the US market, a move repeatedly announced throughout the past decade. But this time, Chrysler and Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne seems serious. In two years, Chrysler will be building and selling Alfas and within four years, Marchionne hope this brand will be an Italian-American BMW.

It seems that small car icons always come from Europe-the Volkswagen Beetle, the Fiat 500, the Mini Cooper. But looking at the Ford Start, one begins to wonder whether an American car company also could make a truly enduring small car. We think this coupe-and it is a coupe, not a hatchback-is supercool, which is not surprising given that the design team had a 1956 Porsche Speedster and a 1960 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Zagato in the studio while they worked on the Start. The concept is built on a shortened Fiesta platform and features a direct-injected, 1.0-liter turbocharged three-cylinder, Ford's smallest powerplant yet to get the EcoBoost treatment. The tiny turbo is headed for production, but the Start isn't. That's too bad, because the Start definitely deserves a go.

Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has finally laid out his plan to integrate Fiat and Chrysler and bring Alfa Romeo back to the United States (see sidebar). The new Alfa Giulietta, just now going on sale in Europe, will be one of the models headed stateside (but not before an update in 2014). The car is also a harbinger of a whole series of promising front-wheel-drive cars yet to come from the combined Fiat/Chrysler team.

With three owners in the past three years, it's been a tumultuous time for Chrysler. The lineup has aged and it's been uncomfortably quiet in terms of new product announcements. The 2011 Grand Cherokee breaks the silence and leads a handful of fresh vehicles into showrooms. While Italian automaker Fiat now controls Chrysler, development of this Grand Cherokee began in 2006, when Chrysler was still tied up with Daimler-Benz (the parent company of Mercedes-Benz). For that reason, the newest Jeep has a lot in common with the Mercedes-Benz ML.