It is Pininfarina’s 80th year, as well as the 80th motor show at Geneva, so it was very fitting that the design house should unveil a concept car that proved to be the hot favourite of so many visitors to the show.

The 2uettottanta is as impossible to ignore as it is to pronounce. A concept car with Alfa Romeo mechanicals, it sticks to a theme “that is firmly rooted in Pininfarina history” – namely, a 2-seater, open-topped sports car.

As with Bertone’s Alfa Romeo-based study, there are no current plans to take the car to production, but both styling houses will have had Alfa’s future intentions very much in mind. The clean, elegant lines of Pininfarina’s voluptuous spider – “which is proposed with a 1750cc turbo engine positioned longitudinally” – are, however, closer to the public’s ideas of how a production Alfa Romeo might look than Bertone’s magnificent flight of fancy.

The face of the 2uettottanta, in particular, is not such a dramatic departure from current Alfa Romeo thinking. And from the side, and the rear, the surfaces are smooth, soft, flowing.

It is a very different concept from Bertone’s, but each grabbed the attention – and admiration – of the crowds at Geneva.

Text: Charis Whitcombe
Photos: Pininfarina