SPY PICS: Alfa's first SUV

Nearly two full decades in the making, ailing Italian brand Alfa Romeo is finally preparing to deliver the SUV that could have made it billions in profits.

Based off the Giulietta, the SUV prototype caught by our spy photographers has been testing widely in southern Europe, including Italy and Spain.

Likely to be dubbed ‘CXover’ when it launches in 2015, the SUV will join a crowded house of mid-sized premium SUVs ranging from the Range Rover Evoque to the Volkswagen Tiguan and from the Audi Q5 to the BMW X3 – and a host of great-value Korean and Japanese offerings.

While it could be the car that finally makes Alfa Romeo the global player it has long threatened to be, industry buzz is that it may be too little, too late, as the brand has been stuck with just two models (the MiTo and the slow-selling Giulietta) for too long and has fallen off the consumer radar.

And, with money tight at parent company Fiat, there is no guarantee the CXover won’t find itself on hold yet again.

Yet it’s a car Alfa Romeo will need if it wants to credibly re-enter the US market, with SUVs holding sway over both hatchbacks and wagons there, even as mid-sizers.

Expect it to be about 4.4 metres long, 1.8 metres wide and with LED technology dominating the lighting arrangements at both ends. While there are rumours of 20-inch wheels and tyres, 17-inch units are said to be more realistic, with 18- and 19-inch options.

Yet it won’t be the high-powered, high-sport Alfa the brand is known for, because the SUV, though at least 150kg heavier than the Giulietta hatch, will be powered by the same 2.0-litre twin-cam turbocharged four-cylinder engine.

Sources at Alfa are claiming a 225kW power output, though that seems a bit highly strung to us and suggest that numbers more in keeping with the Giulietta’s stock outputs are more likely. That means something more in the 170-180kW range, which will be forced to shift the CXover’s weight of around 1600kg.

At least part of its extra weight will come from a permanent all-wheel drive system deemed unnecessary on the Giulietta. The system will send around 60 per cent of its drive to the rear wheels in normal situations but like most similar systems, it will be capable of varying the torque split on demand.

It will also be available as a diesel, leaning on the Fiat Group’s traditional strength in four-pot oil-squashers to deliver more than 450Nm of torque, and it’s this engine that Alfa insiders expect to provide the bulk of CXover sales – the US or no US.

Inside, the CXover will draw on much of the Giulietta’s interior design and its electronic architecture to reduce costs in development, while it will be available as either a pure five-seater or a sportier four-seater.

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