The internet’s made communication weird. From always-on expectations to bots for customer service to social media algorithms delivering the thoughts of the loudest assholes imaginable directly to your eyeballs, it’s been nothing short of a paradigm shift. Adding a new level of weirdness? The CEO of Alfa Romeo is now trolling the Italian government on social media.
In case you haven’t been keeping track, Alfa Romeo recently unveiled its compact electrified crossover on Stellantis’ eCMP platform, and the original plan was to call it the Milano. Well, it turns out the Italian government wasn’t very happy about a car built in Poland being named after an Italian city, so it claimed the name to be illegal. Alfa Romeo then fired back with the cattiest press release imaginable, all while changing the name of the crossover to Junior.
Well, Alfa Romeo isn’t done yet, because CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato recently fired a snot rocket in the Italian government’s general direction by posting an image of a map on LinkedIn. Can you see something that shouldn’t be there?
Yep, plastered right where a label for the city of Milano would go, sits the word “Junior.” Petty? Absolutely. Entertaining? Unquestionably. Welcome to the extremely online age, where the nuances of soft power are blasted to smithereens by Twitter beefs and professional trolling is a thing. Childish? Perhaps, but so is this whole situation, so it’s going to be interesting watching it play out.
Believe it or not, this is actually the second time Alfa Romeo had to give up using the Milano name on a recently announced car. In 2009, the company was launching a new hatchback that was supposed to use the Milano name, but Automotive News Europe reported that Alfa Romeo pulled that name at the last minute due to labor sensitivities. As the outlet claimed:
Alfa workers in the area around Milan (Milano in Italian) are upset that Alfa owner Fiat S.p.A. planned to use the city’s name on a car that would arrive as Alfa was shutting down its operations in the area where it was founded 99 years ago.
In case you’re wondering, that hatchback ended up being called the Giulietta. Oh well, maybe the third time’s the charm for the use of Milano as a car name in the 21st century.
(Photo credits: Alfa Romeo, LinkedIn screenshot)
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Italians have too many communists in their government. This beautiful plug-in car should have a dignified name
This was literally from a right wing government minister.
so what, corporate rules
they could have said they were naming the car for actress Alyssa Milano
That would have gotten them sued by Disney.
They should call it Sausalito or Chessmen instead 😛
What if they had just changed the spelling? Milono, Milanno, Malano, etc.
Milania.
No.
Or maybe Melania… after Melania Trump!
LOL
And yet, the Mercury Milan went about its business unfettered by name changes. I bought the top “limited” trim with the manual transmission new in 2006. Put 260,000 miles on it. Never once in all those miles did the car make me feel/think/imagine Italy
I’m assuming the Mercury Milan was thus named after Milan, OH.
#COTD
nah, Milan Michigan (My-Lin), Romulus’ little brother.
Used for transporting fine California Champagne.
I don’t understand the fuss with naming a car after a cookie, yummy though the cookie might be.
Man, I want some Pepperidge Farm cookies now!
+1
to me, Milano means cookies 😀
Make it an anagram.
Introducing the new Alfa Romeo MONIAL. For added snark, make the ‘I’ a middle finger.
Introducing the Alfa Romeo Mi Lano! It’s Italian for My Lano.
It’s an Alfa, so ALIMON(y) would be fitting
A LIMON*. How did I miss that? 🙂
(*lemon)
A bigger troll would be to hold the big, swanky, international product launch event for it in the sleepy mining town of Junior, West Virginia
If I were Alfa CEO, I might be a bit more circumspect about tweaking a far-right government that’s teetering on the brink of resurrecting Mussolini’s Blackshirts.
Meh they were all bark no bite.
Il Douche went running to Hitler like a little bitch before Monty even got his toes wet.
The last successful Italian vampire was Mussolini. He was the only Italian that could hang upside down!
With a little help.
The Blackshirts definitely favored Alfa Romeos, though.
It reheats the marinara in my heart every time an Italian brand gets catty on the internet. This is the kind of shade that I thrive on.
I still think the ultimate troll would have been to cancel the Alfa Romeo version and sell it instead as a Dodge rebadge.
And call it the Dodge Milano.
I hate social media, so I would never have seen this without Autopian bringing it up. I laughed. Good on ya, Alfa Romeo.
Too soon
I really wish they did a favor and redesigned the car, instead of changing the name
That’s probably the real reason the government objected to the name. It had nothing to do with Poland.
Ooof, too true.