Alfa Romeo was supposed to launch the Tonale SUV – a production vehicle based on the 2019 Tonale Concept – but that has yet to happen. In fact, it’s now scheduled to launch in June of 2022, more than a year late. In fact, out of Alfa’s plan to launch a new model every year until 2026 we’ve seen exactly nothing. The company did update the Stelvio and Giulia for 2022, so it has that going for it, but it’s pretty clear that the company is still feeling the pain of its everlasting struggle to try to remain relevant. Despite the fact that the company can’t even get the Tonale to the market, it’s still hopeful a third, smaller SUV can happen.

Alfa Romeo Is In A Strange Place

The past few years have been beyond turbulent for Alfa Romeo. Back in 2019, we thought for sure the brand was on the verge of death as plans to revive the 8C and GTV names were canceled - news that was quickly followed by the death of the 4C spider literally a week later. This was bad, but at the time, Alfa Romeo was still set on delivering tons of SUVs, even announcing that a new compact SUV would follow the Tonale, but that was supposed to happen in 2022 and has, obviously, been pushed back at least a year since the Tonale isn’t coming until 2022. There was, however, hope that Alfa wasn’t giving up on sporty cars quite yet as rumors indicated a larger-than-Giulia competitor for the BMW 5 Series was in development – a development that has apparently gone nowhere.

Fast forward to today and Alfa Romeo is now part of the Stellantis group of companies, but things are still a little weird. At one point, new CEO Jean-Phillipe Imparato was unwilling to admit that Alfa Romeo has quality issues and even suggested that its products were as good as other luxury automakers, concluding that the key to saving alfa was to raise prices and delay models. And, that’s why the Tonale isn’t here yet, but now we’re getting word that Imparato is very interested in that sub-Tonale SUV. Speaking to U.K. journalists, he said, “I'm convinced if I want to put Alfa Romeo on the safe side of P&L in 10 years, I must be in the biggest segments in the world. I need to be in the B-SUV segment and C-SUV. Being in the corner doesn't bring any results.”

10 years is a long time for a company that’s been in the red for some time, to still remain in the red, but apparently, Stellantis isn’t ready to let go of it quite yet. Word has it that the compact SUV he’s referring to will be called the Brennero, but it won’t be coming to the U.S. as it’s not seen as something that would perform well in our market – it’s apparently too small.

What will happen beyond this, if this even happens (and assuming the Tonale makes its late debut in June 2022) is still a mystery. The Brennero would likely arrive in mid-to-late 2023 as a 2024 model. However, Alfa Romeo still needs to keep up with its 5-year onslaught of new models and right now the company is at its make-it-or-break-it moment. If the Tonale falls flat, the company may not even get the chance to give the Brennero a shot, let alone the new GTV which is, apparently, still being considered. Even today, I still wonder what would have happened if Volkswagen had managed to buy Alfa Romeo decades ago. One can’t help but think that the company would be selling a whole bunch of rebadged Audis and raking in the money.