You can tell that Alfa Romeo is in a good place when the problems it’s having involves deciding between two models that are going to be received well by the public. Apparently, that’s the predicament the Italian automaker finds itself in with the Giulia Sportwagon variant and a report from Car Magazine reveals that the Italian automaker is dropping plans to build the wagon variant of the Giulia because it wants to focus its attention on the Stelvio SUV.

Speaking with the news outlet, Alfa Romeo manufacturing chief Alfredo Altavilla explained that the Giulia Sportwagon, while appealing for a number of different reasons, wouldn’t make sense since the Stelvio already captures a lot of the features and capabilities that the Giulia Sportwagon would have had in case Alfa Romeo decided to green light it. In his own words, Altavilla added that the Stelvio “can capture all the people who would otherwise have been interested in the .”

While there is some point to Altavilla’s explanation, it’s still a little surprising that Alfa Romeo would do anything to quell the momentum that the Giulia has generated since it was launched in 2016. The positive reception of the sedan reignited interest in the once-struggling Italian brand and the momentum has swelled to the point that we’re now in line to see the Giulia Sprint, a two-door coupe variant that’s expected to compete against the likes of the BMW M4, Mercedes-AMG C 63, and Audi RS5. Adding a Sportwagon variant would have helped round out the Giulia family as that model would have been able to directly line up against the BMW 3 Series Touring and the Mercedes C-Class Estate and compete against those variants independently.

Turns out, we’re not going to see that anymore because Alfa Romeo isn’t even going to cross that bridge. Again, the explanation behind the decision to drop the Giulia Sportwagon makes a lot of sense at the moment. Let’s just hope that for Alfa’s sake, it won’t come back and bite them in the future.

Continue after the jump to read the full story.

Decision makes sense, even if a case against it can also be made

I’ve always been of the belief that if you have a good thing going, run with it. That said, this is one of those times where I agree that exercising prudence and caution is the smart thing to do for Alfa Romeo. For the record, I was actually looking forward to the Giulia Sportwagon and see what it could do against its rivals from BMW, Mercedes, and Audi. It would’ve been an interesting fight at the very least given how the Giulia has so far been received by the public.

But Alfa’s manufacturing chief, Alfredo Altavilla, made a very good point. Alfa Romeo doesn’t really need the Giulia Sportwagon because it already has the Stelvio SUV. That might sound weird considering that the two models fall in two entirely different segments, but look inside the curtain and you’ll see that there really isn’t that much of a difference between a Giulia Sportwagon and the Stelvio since both models are based on the same Giorgio platform. Whatever qualities the Giulia Sportwagon may have, there’s a good chance that those qualities can be replicated by the Stelvio. On top of that, the SUV looks cooler, rides higher, likely has more space, and most importantly, it packs a lot of the modern tech features that the Giulia also has.

From a business perspective, there’s a possibility here for the Giulia Sportwagon and the Stelvio to cannibalise sales from one another. That’s a scenario that Alfa Romeo wants to avoid entirely considering that it’s not yet in a strong enough position to be able to dictate the release of its models regardless of what the circumstances may be.

The good news here is that the recently reported Giulia Sprint two-door coupe is not affected by the decision to drop the Giulia Sportwagon. Unlike the wagon, the coupe is it’s own model and one can make a case that it’s just as important to Alfa Romeo’s revival as a sought-after Italian marque as the sedan from which it’s based on and the SUV that the Italian automaker is citing as the biggest reason behind the decision to skip out on the wagon.

Read our full review on the Alfa Romeo Giulia Sportwagon here.