Alfa Romeo Gloria points to new Alfa Giulia

The beautiful Alfa Romeo Gloria Concept looks like it’s a stylised preview of the next Alfa Giulia due in 2015. Debuts at Geneva 2013.

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Last week we got the first look at the Alfa Romeo Gloria, a design concept of an Alfa we thought was going to be just that – another glorious Alfa Concept – to garner some lust on Alfa’s stand at next week’s Geneva Motor Show.

But according to Automotive News, the Alfa Gloria is actually a very strong hint at what the new Alfa Giulia will look like when it arrives in 2015 as part of Sergio Marchionne’s plan to revive the Alfa brand and drive sale forward.

The Gloria (which means ‘Glory’ in Italian) is a project by IED with input from Alfa’s own design team, and the brief was to design a new Alfa that would tug at the wallets of buyers in North America, a key market if Alfa is to achieve its goal of hitting 300,000 sales a year by 2016.

To our eyes, the Alfa Gloria looks terrific. It has Alfa’s historic flowing lines, rear wheel drive and comes – or at least it would if it actually had an engine – with a V6 or V8 BiTurbo powering the Alfa to some real performance.

Alfa Romeo Gloria Pictures >>

If the Gloria does point at the new Giulia then Alfa are certainly on the right track. Sadly, even if the Giulia comes with the key elements of the Gloria intact, Alfa will probably just offer Europeans a diesel-engined version rather than a full-fat V8 or V6.

But at least the new Alfa Romeo Giulia will look terrific.