Milano Becomes Junior!
During one of the most important weeks for the future of Alfa Romeo, an Italian government official declared that the use of the name Milano – chosen by the brand for its recently unveiled new compact sports car – is banned by law.
Despite Alfa Romeo believing that the name meets all legal requirements, and that there are issues much more important than the name of a new car, Alfa Romeo has decided to change it from Milano to Junior in the spirit of promoting mutual understanding.
The name Milano, a public favourite, was chosen to pay tribute to the city where our history began in 1910. This was not the first time that Alfa Romeo has asked for the public’s opinion when choosing the name of a car. It was previously done in 1966 with the Spider 1600 when the name chosen by the public was Duetto.
The Alfa Romeo team would like to thank the public for the positive feedback, the Italian dealer network for their support, journalists for the enormous media attention given to the new car and the Italian government for the free publicity brought on by this debate.
With a unique story and an endless list of names to choose from, the name change was not an issue. It was a pleasure to go over the list of names selected as favourites from the public’s suggestions, one of which was Junior.
Jean-Philippe Imparato – CEO Alfa Romeo “We are perfectly aware that this moment will remain engraved in the history of the brand. It’s a great responsibility but at the same time it’s an exciting moment. The choice of the name Junior is completely natural, as it is strongly linked to the history of the brand and has been among our favourites and among the public’s favourites since the beginning. As a team, we are choosing once again to share our passion for the brand and make the product and our customers the priority. We decided to change the name, even though we know that we are not required to do so, because we want to preserve the positive emotion that our products have always generated and avoid any type of controversy. The attention to our new sports compact that we’ve received the past few days is quite exciting as we had an unprecedented number of visits to the online configurator, causing the website to crash for a couple hours.”
Stefano Odorici – President of the Italian Alfa Romeo Dealers Association “Alfa Romeo is an inclusive brand, which welcomes and generates passion and positive emotions. You can clearly see it when I look into the eyes of our customers when they come to see, test, purchase and collect Alfa Romeo cars in our dealerships. For this reason, we welcome the decision taken by the company to change the name of the car from Milano to Junior in light of the latest news, which could affect the enthusiasm and the enormous attention that the new car is receiving from our customers recently. Junior, like Milano, are both beautiful names that have their roots in the history of the brand. It is no coincidence that they were immediately among the public’s favourites.”
Origin of the name Junior
Following the success of the Giulia and its Giulia Sprint GT coupé version, designed by Giugiaro for Bertone, the goal for Alfa Romeo is to attract a new, younger audience eager for a brilliant, exclusive car without excessive purchase and running costs.
On September 26, 1966, the GT 1300 Junior was unveiled in Balocco and, despite the lack of the name Giulia, it was the leader of a new Alfa Romeo generation. Similar versions of the Spider range will also be identified with the Junior.
The main mechanical variant was the adoption of the 1,290cc twin-cam engine, which – thanks to the single power supply and new timing – delivered 89 hp and a top speed of over 105mph, only slightly less than that of the 1600, as well as the fact it could deliver high-level performance and driving pleasure. The bodywork was also updated with a dedicated and more youthful trim.
With sales of over 92,000 units, the GT 1300 Junior soon became the overall best seller in the line-up and a true status symbol of its time.
