Alfa Romeo has been looking for affordable rear-wheel-drive architecture to help relaunch the brand in North America. And now it has found the parts it needs in parent company Fiat's new acquisition, Chrysler Group. Parts from the LY architecture underpinning the 2011 Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger, will form the basis for Alfa's next flagship sedan, the 169. It replaces the discontinued front-wheel-drive 166.
As we predicted last year, Toyota is preparing its tiny iQ 3+1 city car for North America, badged as a Scion. The car could arrive late in 2010 as an 2011 model, or in early 2011 as a 2012. Under Scion's revived one-model-and-out strategy, the iQ would be replaced with something different after a single five-year cycle.