Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint revealed – price from £20,490

The new Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint has been revealed to mark 60 years since the first Giulietta Sprint, with a 1.4 litre MultiAir engine and costing from £20,490.

Even though Alfa Romeo has lost its way in recent years, it has a rich back catalogue of iconic cars and iconic badges. One of which is the ‘Sprint’.

So it makes sense – while we wait for the long-promised Alfa renaissance – to sprinkle a bit of Alfa historic fairy dust on one of Alfa’s current batch of cars to see if it lights a small touchpaper on sales, so we’re get the new Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint for 2015.

Marking 60 years since the Giulietta Sprint first arrived, the new Giulietta Sprint is nothing more than a titivated regular Giulietta, but it’s not a bad car and the Sprint badge may just entice a few buyers in to Alfa’s showrooms.

Equipped with a 1.4 litre MultiAir turbo petrol engine, the new Giulietta Sprint comes with a six-speed manual gearbox, enough for a 0-62mph of 8.2 seconds and a top speed of 130mph.

And that power is a good indication of how far engine technology has come in the 60 years since the original Giulietta Sprint; the original Sprint had an engine just slightly smaller than the new Sprint – a 1.3 litre twin-cam – but delivered less than half the power.

The new Giulietta Sprint comes with 17″ five-hole alloys, Sprint badges, carbon effect for the door panels and dash surround, cloth and Alcantara seats, leather steering wheel with red stitching, new back bumper, side skirts and dark tinted windows as well as stuff like AirCon, LED running lights and tail lights, Uconnect with DAB and Bluetooth and sports instruments.

Options include Metallic Paint (£510), Electric Sunroof (£1200), Bi-Xenons (930), Climate (£450) and Uconnect with the bigger 6.5″ screen and SatNav (£1050).

The new Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint goes on sale in the UK in early 2015.