Alfa Romeo Mito TCT (2011) comes to the UK

Alfa Romeo's first twin-cluch gearbox is launching in the Mito - and the Mito TCT is now available in the UK.

The MultiAir 1.4 is the launch engine for the TCT twin dry clutch transmission. Typically for Alfa, it's technically interesting: Alfa claims it enhances performance and comfort, gives a sportier feel and more importantly in the current climate, reduces CO2 emissions.

Combined with start-stop, the Mito MultiAir returns 51.4mpg combined economy, 128g/km of CO2 and yet acheives 0-62mph in just 8.2 seconds.

Alfa Romeo claims its innovative dry twin-clutch system is 10% more efficient then the traditional auto transmission. Moreover, it intelligently adapts to different driving environments, softening gearchanges on slippery roads, and picking early upchanges when pootling around town to clean up emissions.

Alfa explains the choice of dry clutches in its TCT system in more detail:

'If we compare dry clutches with oil bath (wet) clutches, we can safely say that the former dissipate energy only during the actual slipping phase of the gearchange and on pick-up, whereas wet clutches, which always operate in an oil bath, introduce losses due to viscous friction such as those of conventional automatic transmissions, even when they are not in operation. They also require forced cooling with oil, and therefore continuous energy expenditure to drive the dedicated oil pump (absent in the case of dry clutches).

'A "wet" automatic transmission also requires approximately 4.8 litres more gearbox oil than the dry version, again for reasons of clutch cooling (in this way, weight is added and losses due to splashing increase). When all these effects are added together, a dry transmission is found to be approximately 6% more efficient than the corresponding wet one in terms of consumption.'

So now you know.

Suprisingly, not much more than the Alfa Mito 1.3 JTD. The Mito MultiAir TCT will start at £16,475 - £690 more than the 1.3 diesel.

By Sarah-Jayne Harrison