An Alfa in Chrysler Auditions

ON a scenic rural stretch of autostrada between Milan and Turin, an Alfa Romeo MiTo in luscious Rosso Giulietta paint merged onto the expressway. It pulled alongside, paused, then sped away in a blatant invitation to race — perhaps because I, too, was driving a red MiTo.

Despite my vow not to send any more euros to the operators of Italy’s speed cameras, I must confess that I managed to keep the other red MiTo in sight.

Over the kilometers, sometimes the driver would slow down, inviting me to pass. Then he would zoom ahead again. This leap-frogging continued until we reached a toll plaza outside Turin. He cheerily waved “arrivederci” and veered off at an exit.

This guy was just the sort of driver this new Alfa is aimed at: an active, thrill-seeking, performance-minded 20-something.

There are plenty of young Americans who meet those criteria as well, and they will have a shot at sowing their wild oats in a MiTo, too. Since the Fiat Group acquired a stake in Chrysler this year, it announced that the MiTo and the Fiat 500 would arrive in American showrooms in 2010.

“The MiTo is going to help us re-establish the Alfa brand in the United States,” said Richard Gadeselli, vice president for communications of the Fiat Group, in a recent interview at the company’s headquarters here.

Though Alfa Romeo left the American market in 1995, the MiTo hatchback will not really be the first new Alfa to appear in the United States since then. The 8C Competizione and Spider have been available through select Ferrari and Maserati dealers since last year. Considering the stratospheric prices of the limited-edition, hand-built 8C, the MiTo will be the first new Alfa intended for general audiences.

Both the MiTo and the 500 will be sold at Chrysler — not Ferrari — dealerships, though they will still wear Alfa and Fiat badges. American-market prices have not been announced, but $20,000 or so seems likely for the MiTo and mid-teens for the 500.

The autostrada connecting Milan and Turin was an appropriate venue for a test drive; the MiTo, which is pronounced me-TOE and sounds like an athlete’s foot remedy, is in fact a melding of the names of those cities. Milan, where Alfa was founded in 1910, is the location of the Centro Stile design studio where the MiTo was conceived, and Turin — Italy’s Motor City — is where it is built.