Alfa Romeo to programme host of mechanical faults into new Junior for ‘authenticity’

Here’s TopGear.com’s roving correspondent, Cory Spondent, with his mostly incorrect exclusives from the world of motoring

Alfa Romeo will programme in a roster of incomprehensible faults into its new electric Junior in a bid to capture the ‘true Alfa ownership experience’, sources have told TopGear.com.

Following its hasty renaming after a run-in with Italian officials, sources claim the company will instead reinforce the car’s Italian legacy by intermittently and inexplicably breaking down in a haze of warning lights and swear words.

As such, engineers have secretly coded in a range of electrical and mechanical gremlins, ranging from common and complex faults, right up to the enormously unfathomable and sometimes terminal problems that question the very nature of reality.

“We thought naming it ‘Milano’ after our birthplace would instil a sense of history and legacy into our new electric SUV,” an insider revealed. “Now we can’t do that, so instead we’re going to fill it with problems so that whatever its name, customers know this is an ‘authentic’ Alfa Romeo.

“The Junior’s dashboard will be a disco of ‘Check Engine’ lights. We’ve programmed the electric motors to slowly disconnect themselves from the driveshaft. The battery will show 98 per cent, and in a flash show 0 per cent.

“And every third Sunday in the month, it’ll work absolutely flawlessly, impervious to harm and hindrance, and you’ll be mesmerised by the brilliance of our wonderful new Alfa.

“Then a door card will fly off as you round the corner to your house and it’ll fail to start the next day.”