Alfa Rome Tonale Concept: Design Heritage

Alfa Romeo's Tonale concept SUV was presented at the 2019 Geneva auto show in March.  A similar-appearing production version is expected.  Some background on the Tonale can be found here and here.

Compared to some Japanese styling excesses (I'm thinking of you, Lexis, Toyota and Honda!), Tonale's design is clean and attractive.  Well, I'm not sure that frowning look given by the headlight ensembles was the best solution, but I'll let that pass for now.

What I think might interest readers is Alf Romeo's contention that the Tonale's design was influenced by the styling of various Alfa automobiles going back as far as the late 1930s.

This was a theme stressed in a May/June 2019 Auto&Design magazine supplement, Auto&Design being an Italian-based, bilingual publication featuring background information (especially styling illustrations) on the design gestation of newly-announced  automobiles.

Below are photos of the car along with drawings from Centro Stile Alfa Romeo indicating sources of inspiration.  For some reason, I very slightly suspect that some of this is post-design retroactive justification for various features.  Let's assume I'm wrong, because it's usually nice to see design language continuity.  Click on images to enlarge.

Gallery

Photos of the Tonale.  Design "DNA" sketches are below.