Alfa Romeo Junior Review & Prices

The Alfa Romeo Junior is the sort of car that might cause some confusion among traditional fans of the brand. No, it’s not a high-performance saloon nor coupe. Nor is it a sports car. It’s actually a compact SUV, one that shares lots of bits with the likes of the Jeep Avenger and Peugeot 2008. 

In years gone by, such a thing would have made a proper Alfa fan spit out their espresso in disgust, and that’s without mentioning the fact that the Junior arrived initially as a fully-electric model. What’s the Italian for ‘heaven forfend…?’

Alfa knows that electric cars aren’t for everyone just yet though, and so there’s a hybrid model of the Junior, called Ibrida just to prove once again that everything sounds 58% cooler in Italian. Like the hybrid versions of the Jeep Avenger and the Peugeot 2008, this one is based around a 1.2-litre petrol engine, backed up by a compact electric motor and a small battery. It produces 134hp, and drives the front wheels through a six-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox. 

That’s enough to give the Alfa Romeo Junior Ibrida a 0-62mph time of 8.9 seconds — respectable — and claimed fuel economy of 53.4mpg, with tax-friendly CO2 emissions of 117g/km.

The styling of the Junior Ibrida is basically the same as that of the electric models, aside from the badge and the fact that this one has an exhaust pipe sticking out the back. It’s a cute car, one that seems to take classical Alfa Romeo styling tricks and shrinks them down into a modern mini-SUV shape. It won’t be to all tastes, but at least it’s different. The V-shaped ‘Scudetto’ grille looks especially striking, but sadly new rules means you can’t have an offset number plate to show it off properly anymore. Spoilsports. 

The rear is sharply chopped-off in a Kamm-style tail, which Alfa calls the Coda Tronca. See what we mean about everything sounding better in Italian. There’s no danger of you mistaking this Alfa Romeo for the Jeep, Peugeot, and Fiat models which share its structure under the skin. 

That’s true of the interior too, where the Junior Ibrida again copies the electric version pretty closely. You get some very handsome digital instruments under a 1960s-style hood, and those instruments have a very cool setting that sets the pixels to replicate the look of the gauges from a classic Alfa Romeo GTV coupe. 

There’s a 10.25-inch touchscreen set down low in the centre of the dashboard, but thankfully — and unlike Peugeot — Alfa keeps some physical buttons for the air conditioning, which makes life much easier and means you’ll spend less time staring at the screen. 

The front seats are suitably sporty-looking bucket numbers — made by Sabelt, which makes bits and pieces for Formula One cars — and optionally you can have lashings of fake suede material for them and for the dashboard and centre console. You might just spot some Jeep and Fiat buttons mounted up high by the air vents, but that’s about the only giveaway that this Junior Ibrida shares a platform with other cars. We also love the way that the engine start button sits up at an angle, just like in a Ferrari. 

Space is good up front, but a little less so in the back, where legroom is pretty tight. The compensation for that is a decent boot, which at 415 litres is a little bigger than that of the electric versions of the Junior. That should be good enough for four carry-on-sized suitcases. 

In tech terms, the Alfa Romeo Junior Ibrida gets Alfa’s usual DNA driving mode selector (Dynamic, Natural, and All-Weather) as well as smartphone connections (both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in the car, and Alfa’s own smartphone app so you can keep an eye on the Junior remotely). There’s also a digital NFT certificate for the service history, and ChatGPT AI built into the voice control (maybe you can ask it for more words that sounds cooler in Italian…). 

There’s also adaptive cruise control, lane keeping steering, a reversing camera, ambient cabin lighting, and keyless entry. 

We'll have an in-depth review ready to go once we've extensively tested the Alfa Romeo Junior Ibrida, but do in the meantime check out our review of the Alfa Romeo Junior Electric and browse through our latest Alfa Romeo deals. You can sell your current car through Carwow, too.

UK prices haven’t yet been set, but the omens look very good. The all-electric Junior is priced at the mid-£30,000 mark, and so far the hybrid versions of the mechanically-similar Jeep Avenger and Peugeot 2008 have been around £9,000 cheaper than the electric models, so there’s a good chance that this hybrid Alfa could cost as little as £25,000. That would make it competitive with the likes of the Ford Puma, Skoda Kamiq, and VW T-Roc.