Alfa Romeo Milano Changed Its Name to Junior Following the Dispute with the Italian Government.
An Italian minister has suggested it is illegal to use the Milano because the crossover will be produced in Poland
The Alfa Romeo Milano was unveiled less than a week ago, but it has already undergone a major change. In fact, it's not even called Milan anymore.
The surprising development came shortly after Adolfo Urso, Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy, claimed that the name was illegal. As he explains, "a car named Milan cannot be produced in Poland" because the law "prescribes that you cannot give indicators that would mislead consumers." In fact, he claims that consumers will be fooled into thinking the crossover is built in Milan.
While this may seem like a ridiculous argument, considering no one believes Hyundai builds crossovers or trucks in Tucson, Arizona, Santa Fe, New Mexico, or Santa Cruz, California, it turns out the confusion was too much for Alfa Romeo. As a result, they decided to change Milan's name to Junior.
This is a surprising development, especially considering that the Italian government spent months protesting the name, but the company decided that changing the name was the best move. As they explain, "Although we believe that the name meets all legal requirements and that there are much more important considerations than the name of a new car, Alfa Romeo has decided to change it from 'Milano' to 'Alfa Romeo Junior' in the spirit of promoting mutual understanding." Alfa Romeo jokingly thanked "the government for the free publicity this controversy has brought".
"It is completely natural that the name Alfa Romeo Junior was chosen, as it is strongly linked to the brand's history and has been among our and the public's favorites from the very beginning," said Jean-Philippe Imparato, Alfa Romeo CEO. said. He added: "We decided to change the name even though we knew we didn't need to do this because we wanted to preserve the positive feeling our products have always created and avoid any controversy."
The executive said the crossover appears to be a huge success and the attention they've received is "pretty exciting." Specifically, Imparato said they received "an unprecedented number of hits to the online configurator, causing the website to crash for several hours."
Source:https://www.carscoops.com/2024/04/alfa-romeo-milano-renamed-junior-after-government-objection/
