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Alfa Romeo goes rear-drive; eight new cars by 2018 including 4C Cloverleaf

By Damion Smy Motor Industry 06 May 2014 15:51 Alfa Romeo has confirmed the news first broken exclusively by CAR in July 2013: the Italian brand will make a dramatic shift from front-drive hatches like the Mito and Giulietta, and instead develop a new range of rear- and all-wheel sports saloons, SUVs and sports cars. Announced in Detroit at Fiat-Chrysler HQ, Alfa Romeo chief technology officer Harald Wester revealed the mantra for the brand includes pushing volumes up from 74,000 sales in 2013, to around 400,000 by 2018. Alfa Romeo is investing around €5bn in the project, the first fruits of which will be the new Giulia saloon, a 3-series rival that will go on sale in autumn 2015.Read our scoop of Alfa's strategy here That’s right.

Alfa Romeo 4C (2012) more official pictures

Yes, yes - it's only a new paint job on the Alfa Romeo 4C concept car. But the 4C remains one of our favourite show cars in recent years, so we're only too happy to show off its new Fluid Metal colour scheme. The 4C will be shown again at the 2011 Frankfurt motor show on 13 September.

Google hopeful over driverless car

GOOGLE says it has turned a corner in its pursuit of a car that can drive itself. The leader of the technology giant's driverless car project wrote in a blog post that test vehicles are becoming far more adept at city driving. They can already comfortably handle motorways, he said, but city driving presents a virtual obstacle course of pedestrians, cyclists and blind corners.