Alfa Romeo Montreal: Design Student Resurrects Marcello Gandini's 1970s Coupe

Posted by Mr Dung Sunday, March 14, 2010

[Autoblog]


As talented as any designer may be, it's never easy to update an original classic such as Marcello Gandini's 1970s Alfa Romeo Montreal sports coupe. Nevertheless, young design student Davide Varenna tried his best to create a modern interpretation of the Montreal for the "Stile Italiano Giovani 2010" competition organized by ANFIA.

The 20 year-old student adopted many styling cues from the original Montreal including the deep headlights, the shape of the side windows and doors, the hood-mounted NACA duct and slats behind the doors, adding his own personal touch to the rest of the car.

The original Montreal started its life as a concept car at the 1967 Montreal Expo in Canada. Designed by Marcello Gandini, responsible for some of the most celebrated designs in automotive history such as the Lamborghini Miura, Countach and Diablo, Lancia Stratos, Fiat X1/9, Maserati Quattroporte (first generation) and Citroen BX, just to mention a few, the concept model spawned a production version in 1970.

The 2+2 seater Alfa Romeo Montreal was powered by a 2.6-liter V8 engine with fuel injection generating around 200 horsepower and was hooked up to a five-speed manual gearbox that drove the rear wheels.

It remained in production until 1977 with Alfa Romeo selling close to 4,000 units of the car. Ironically, the Montreal was never officially sold in the city it was named after as the car was never certified for sale in North America.




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1 Responses to Alfa Romeo Montreal: Design Student Resurrects Marcello Gandini's 1970s Coupe

  1. M Says:
    Posted on April 8, 2010 at 1:49 AM

  2. Personally, I like it. It's definitely not easy to re-design a classic it can often be the case that if a designer so much as looks at a classic in the wrong way, they'll get a slap. And I've read quite a few negative comments about this.

    But if this were to be released as a new Alfa, I wouldn't mind. Or just used as the starting point. I think it'd go down well eventually.

     

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