Autodelta, Europe’s foremost Alfa Romeo tuning specialist, have disclosed their confidential plans to Italiaspeed for the stunning new Alfa Romeo 159 saloon, less than 48 hours before its official world premiere at the 75th Geneva Salon.

In a first for the London based company, Autodelta will also be present at Geneva, where on Tuesday they will present their newest model, the Autodelta GT Super to a truly discerning international audience. We will have more detailed news on their plans tomorrow, but for now we turn our attention to the new Alfa 159.

Hugely anticipated, the Alfa 159 replaces the much loved Alfa 156, and the interest in the build-up has been unprecedented. Every spy shot, every sketch, every snippet of information has been poured over in minute detail by Alfisti the word over. By the first time official images were published on Monday, excitement had reached fever pitch.

Autodelta have a legendary reputation for taking Alfa Romeo cars to the very edge of dynamic performance – and now join the party as they turn their tuning attention to the all-new Alfa 159.

This programme follows on the back of a hugely successful 2004, which saw Autodelta launch the 147 GTA AM 3.7 and the 156 GTA AM 3.7 – both fitted with the Autodelta 328 bhp V6  engine, and the supercharged 320 bhp Autodelta GT Super. All in all, a truly bespoke line-up.    

“Interest in the Alfa 159 has been unprecedented,“ comments Autodelta’s ever enthusiastic boss Jano Djelalian. “We have been inundated with phone calls from people asking what we have planned - and  that’s before anyone has seen the car in the flesh! In my lifetime's experience with Alfas I have never seen anything like it  - the buzz going round is really amazing!”

And Autodelta’s plans for the new 159? “For the first time we intend to have a full range of tuning enhancements available for a new model, giving any customer with any version of the 159, a tailor made solution,“ continues Jano.

“Our in-house styling division, Creativestudio, is designing a styling up-grade which will sympathetically enhance and build upon Giugiaro’s fabulous lines – whilst transmission, suspension, braking and chassis packages will also be offered.”

“Engines are probably the most exciting area of development for Autodelta, and the opportunities are almost limitless. With the advent of the new generation of V6 engines, the chance to work with new technology has been very exciting for our engineers.”

Furthermore, with the explosion in the popularity of diesel engines in Europe, Autodelta has a development programme underway during 2005 to squeeze a lot of extra horsepower from the standard diesel versions. With this, Jano confirms the roll-out significant performance upgrades for both the JTD and Multijet lines.

Jano turns now to the new JTS petrol engines. ”We will offer enhancements for the full engine range, from the 1.9 and 2.2 litre units, through to the news 3.2 V6.

"From what I have heard Alfa have really done their homework very well on these engines, so the excellent torque characteristics give us a solid base on which we can build. Over the last two decades, Autodelta has become famous for tuning a lot more power out of Alfa engines and the availability of all-wheel-drive now means that we can seriously increase the amount of power we can put through all four wheels.

"Our engineers have worked very hard in recent years to successfully get big horsepower gains on front wheel drive cars like the Alfa 147 and 156, and they are relishing having all-wheel-drive available as part of our line-up.”     

Jano concludes, “With the all-wheel-drive versions, the Alfa 159 represents a serious driver’s car.  Creating drivers’ cars is what we do, so with a head start we can turn the Alfa 159 into the ultimate driver’s saloon!”