Alfa Romeo Junior 2026 review | Sporty and stylish small SUV from Italy (well, kinda...)

What is the Alfa Romeo Junior?

It’s Alfa Romeo finally joining the Stellantis party, that’s what. Yes, the sporty Italian brand has officially been a part of the huge European manufacturing powerhouse ever since its inception in 2021 upon the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and French firm PSA. However, Alfa’s first new model under the new arrangement - the Tonale SUV of 2022 - had already been developed and signed off under FCA stewardship. The newer Junior, meanwhile - a small SUV that slots into the firm’s SUV range below both the Tonale and the larger Stelvio - is the first Alfa Romeo model to use Stellantis underpinnings and mechanicals, making it a true member of the Stellantis platform-sharing family.

Its start in life came with something of an identity crisis, too. When it was first launched in April 2024, it was named the Alfa Romeo Milano, only for it to be - rather embarrassingly - renamed five days later after the Italian Government claimed that it was illegal to sell Italian-sounding products that aren’t made in Italy (the Junior is built in Tychy, Poland, alongside the Fiat 600 and Jeep Avenger, with which is shares its CMP platform).

As a small SUV (a 'B-segment SUV', according to the near-incomprehensible gobbledygook of the motor industry), the Junior plays rival to a frankly dizzying amount of competitors, such is the popularity of this sector of the car market. We’ll namecheck the Ford Puma and Nissan Juke as some of the most popular ones, both being among the UK’s best-selling models, but seriously, naming all of the models competing in the class would take all day. Just know that demand is high, and competition is fierce.

So how does the Junior compete? Well, with its traditional style, which is every bit as flamboyant and daring as we’ve come to expect from the Italian firm, and with the promise of sportiness that an Alfa inherently makes. But does it deliver on that promise? Read on to find out…

How practical is it?

The Junior is a small-ish car, so it doesn’t have to be the last word in practicality, but even so, it’s true that a good number of rivals do rather better here.

Space up front is fine, just as you’d expect, but in the back seats, headroom and legroom are definitely on the tight side. A six-foot adult will fit behind a similarly sized driver, but there won’t be much room to spare, and they’ll likely feel quite confined. The narrow cabin, hard middle seat, and bulky transmission tunnel in the middle of the floor means that this isn’t a brilliant option if you need to carry three passengers in the back.

What’s more, the narrow rear door openings - filled by doors that don’t open particularly wide - mean that getting in and out of the rear seats in the first place isn’t as easy as it should be.

The boot is a decent size by class standards, but not class-leading. There’s 415 litres of space in the Hybrid, and 400 in the electric versions. Fold down the 60/40 split-folding rear seats (not as versatile as the 40/20/40 arrangements in some rivals), and the maximum load capacity you get is 1,280 litres in the hybrid and 1,265 litres in the EVs.

There’s a multi-level boot floor that gives you more options over the nature of the boot space, but it works in quite an odd way. Remove it completely, and there’s a large lip to the boot opening, and a large step up to the folded rear seatback when those have been dropped. Install the false boot floor at its lower level, and it levels off the step to the folded rear seats (although these lie at an angle, so approximately half your extended load area is still sloped), but not the boot lip. Install the false floor at its higher level, meanwhile, and it levels off the lip, but it sits a good couple of inches above the folded seatbacks. With most such arrangements, there’s a setting to level off both the lip and the step to the seatbacks at the same time. Not here.

What’s it like to drive?

The Alfa Romeo Junior is offered in either hybrid (known as ‘Ibrida’) or all-electric (tagged ‘Elettrica’) forms. According to our experience so far, there's quite a big difference between them in terms of experience, so we'll talk about them separately, and we'll begin with the former.

Contrary to the company’s claims, the hybrid isn’t what we’d call a ‘proper’ hybrid: it’s merely a 48-volt mild hybrid that has a small electric motor and teeny battery to provide a small amount of assistance to the 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol engine. It can move around under pure electric propulsion at very low parking speeds, but getting anywhere near double-digit speeds will have the petrol engine kicking back in again, and even if you maintain that super-low velocity, the electric propulsion will last metres, rather than miles.

Initially, this powertrain gave an output of 134bhp, but it has since been uprated to give 143bhp. It’s the former we’ve driven, because Alfa hasn’t yet been able to give us a go in the latter, but the performance figures have barely changed, so we can’t imagine that the driving experience would be a whole lot different.

The level of performance feels entirely adequate, even if the powertrain doesn’t feel altogether polished. The throttle response is a little lazy, and the six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission is rather ponderous, and both result in a marked pause between you pressing the pedal and anything appreciable happening. Once the powertrain does respond, it does so keenly: sometimes too keenly, as pressing the hard-to-modulate throttle often results in you surging forwards quicker than you anticipated, the petrol engine rasping away noisily as you do so. That’s especially true if you select the ‘Dynamic’ driving mode rather than normal, as that makes the gearbox hold lower gears for longer to give a racier character.

The Ibrida's driving experience is a little confounding in other areas, too. The ride has a distinctly firm edge, no doubt to help convey that character of sportiness and dynamism. The suspension is actually rather good a soaking up the effects or larger bumps, ruts and potholes, especially sharper-edged ones, but smaller, higher-frequency road imperfections have the car jostling and jittering: that applies at all speeds, but especially at low ones. It stops short of being uncomfortable, but it’s also true that many rivals will give you a more relaxing time.

But importantly for an Alfa, does the Junior Ibrida deliver on the sporty handling? Well, kind of, but not completely. You see, the steering is very responsive, grip is decent, and once the car is settled into a corner, body control is pretty tight. However, that tight body control doesn’t happen immediately: when you first turn the steering wheel, the car’s body encounters an initial slop of sideways motion before the suspension catches it and brings the body movement under control. This admittedly makes direction changes feel more dramatic, but it also makes them feel untidier than they would otherwise be, especially when you’re turning left to right - or vice-versa - in quick succession.

The steering is also on the light side in the Normal driving mode, and while selecting Dynamic mode dumps a bunch of weight into it, it feels artificial and unconvincing. The Ibrida feels curiously heavy on the brakes, too, in the way that many proper hybrids and plug-in hybrids - ones with big enough batteries to make a substantial difference - often do.

The Junior Elettrica, meanwhile, comes in two forms, both with a 54kWh battery pack. The basic version has a 154bhp electric motor on the front axle, driven through a single-speed transmission. Performance figures for this are very similar to the Hybrid’s with a 0-62mph time of 9.0 seconds, but as we haven’t tried this version yet, we can’t tell you whether it’s any more polished.

We have, however, had a go in the other version of the Elettrica, which is the range-topping 280 Veloce, and as we've already mentioned, this is a very different kettle of fish, or 'bollitore di pesce' if you prefer the Italian.

As the performance flagship of the Junior range, this has 277bhp, giving a fairly rapid 0-62mph sprint time of 5.9 seconds. The level of get-up-and-go feels predictably strong, but not in an uncontrollable way: the accelerator pedal is easier to modulate than the Ibrida's, so it's easy to tap into just the right amount of acceleration you want without accidentally overdoing it.

Things aren't perfect with the powertrain, though. For one thing, each and every one of those 277 horsepowers are delivered through the front wheels, and this inevitably results in some torque steer. A torque-sensing limited-slip differential is provided to help keep things in check, but it can only do so much. As a result, it's not too bad on an eight-tenths throttle or less, but if you really floor the pedal, the steering wheel writhes around in your hands pretty violently, tugging the car from side to side, and you have to tense both your wrists and your forearms to fight against it and keep your car going straight ahead. And, when driven more gently, you'll notice some strange noises - whirrs and whooshes, mainly - coming from the electric motor.

There's a marked difference in ride and handling with the 280 Veloce, too, which isn't surprising given that it's around 250kg heavier than the Ibrida and has a suspension that's been lowered by 25mm. One similarity is that the jitteriness remains, and in fairness, it doesn't feel a whole lot worse in most situations. However, the ability to absorb larger bumps is compromised, meaning that the ride takes on a rather crashy quality alongside the underlying tremor. Whether it's tolerable or not will depend on your level of dedication to the pursuit of sportiness, but we think you'll need to be fairly dedicated to put up with it.

The better news is that a slight deterioration in ride quality results considerably better handling. We don't know whether it's the extra weight or the lowered suspension, but the 280 Veloce feels a lot more at ease on its springs than the Ibrida: that initial slop of body movement as you turn is dialled out effectively, and from there on, grip and body control are just as strong, so direction changes feel generally much crisper and more composed. Even the steering feels better: selecting Dynamic mode still dumps a load of weight into it, but this weight feels somehow less artificial and more convincing. The steering remains very responsive, too. Just remember to pull your punches enough with your throttle inputs to keep the torque steer in check, and there's some definite fun to be had.

Again, though, things weren't entirely tickety-boo with the Veloce we drove. Very soon after getting behind the wheel, we noticed a quiet-but-unpleasant grinding noise from under the car when the steering was turned all the way to the right. After grovelling around underneath, we worked out that it was the inside of the front-right wheel rim (massive 20-inchers are standard on the Veloce) making contact with the suspension arm when turned full-lock (it didn't happen with the steering turned all the way to the left, interestingly). We'd hope that this was just an isolated defect with our particular car, but stuff like that really shouldn't happen.

Technology, equipment & infotainment

In terms of equipment, the base-level Junior - known simply as Junior - comes with 18-inch alloy wheels, ambient interior lighting, climate control air-conditioning, cruise control, an electric parking brake, powered door mirrors, electric windows, keyless start, LED headlamps, rain-sensing wipers, rear parking sensors, fabric upholstery, and manual front seat adjustment.

The next rung up the trim ladder is TI, and these cars come with a body kit, sports pedals, rear privacy glass, traffic sign recognition, and a power-adjusting driver’s seat with massage function.

Sport Speciale comes next, and this adds a whole heap of extra equipment. This includes Alcantara upholstery, a different body kit, some minor interior trim upgrades, LED Matrix headlights, a powered tailgate, front- and side parking sensors, adaptive cruise control with lane centring and traffic jam assistance, blind spot monitoring, and a reversing camera.

The Veloce sits at the top of the range, and alongside its more powerful electric powertrain, it comes with 20-inch alloy wheels, 25mm lowered suspension, a contrasting black roof, red-painted brake calipers, and a limited slip differential.

In terms of infotainment, all Junior models get a 10.25 central screen (which is mounted oddly low down on the dashboard, so it’s not in your natural eyeline), along with a 10.25 digital instrument cluster. There’s no navigation on entry-level trim, but that comes with TI trim and upwards. The basic Junior and TI have four-speaker audio, while Sport Speciale and Veloce versions have six-speaker audio and wireless smartphone charging.

Both screens are allegedly configurable in terms of their layout, but we had problems making it work properly. The choice of three layouts for the central screen worked well enough, but when we tried to select one of the five layouts for the digital instrument panel, our chosen layout would only show for as long as the configuration menu on the central screen was on display. If we moved away from that menu to try and do something else with the touchscreen, our driver display would immediately default back to the layout we were trying to ditch in the first place. Aside from not working properly, it’s annoying that you have to switch between layouts using the central screen, rather than with a button on the steering wheel.

On the more positive side, the on-screen climate menu is supplemented by a full complement of physical controls on the dashboard (hallelulah!) and we also found the screen sensitivity to be pretty reliable. Most of the various submenus are reasonably easy to navigate, although the Settings menu is very long and rather convoluted, so things aren’t perfect. We very much like the fact that there are quick-and-easy shortcuts for disabling some of the more irritating driver assistance systems, though.

Alfa Romeo Junior running costs

Prices for the Junior Ibrida range between approximately £29,000 and £34,000, while the Elettrica costs between around £34,000 and £39,000 for the 154bhp powertrain, or around £42,000 for the range-topping 277bhp Veloce.

That makes the Junior considerably more expensive than most other Stellantis cars with which it shares its underpinnings, powertrains, technology, and pretty much everything else, although the Peugeot 2008 is a little more expensive still. Compared with all its other myriad small SUV rivals, the Junior definitely sits at the more expensive end of the spectrum, so you’ll have to have really fallen for that flamboyant styling if you’re going to justify the car’s considerable cost to yourself.

Running costs should be pretty low, though. The Ibrida - despite being a mild hybrid and not a proper hybrid - still has an official WLTP fuel return of up to 58mpg, which is really rather good.

The regular 154bhp Elettrica has a range of up to 255 miles on a full charge of the 54kWh battery, or 207 miles on the 277bhp Veloce. That full charge will take a little over eight hours on a standard 7kW domestic wallbox charger, and cost around £15 if you pay the UK’s national average rate for your domestic electricity. Getting yourself on a variable tariff that allows you to charge overnight on heavily discounted off-peak electricity will likely see you pay less than half that for a charge, however.

The Junior has a maximum DC rapid charging rate of 100kW, which is pretty average. At an appropriately powerful public rapid charging station, you can take on a 20%-100% top up in 27 minutes, but charging this way will be much, much more expensive than charging at home, and probably won’t cost you much less than fuelling a petrol or diesel car.

In terms of insurance groups, the Ibrida sits in group 26 (of 50, with group 50 cars being the most expensive to cover). The 154bhp Elettrica sits in group 23, while the range-topping 277bhp Veloce model sits up in group 34.

No version of the Ibrida costs anywhere near the £40,000 price threshold that saddles combustion-engined cars with the higher rate of VED road tax, which adds £440 to your annual tax payment between years two and six of the car’s life, on top of the £200 flat rate, so you won't have to worry about that. The threshold for electric cars is raised to £50,000, and happily, no version of the Elettrica gets anywhere near that, either.

Alfa Romeo Junior reliability

The Alfa Romeo Junior wasn’t included in the most recent What Car? Reliability Survey, but Alfa Romeo as a brand came 17th out of 30 in the manufacturer standings. After years of poor results in this area, that’s a very creditable performance.

You only get a three-year warranty with the Alfa Romeo Junior, while rivals from Hyundai and Kia come with five- and seven-year cover, respectively. However, there’s no mileage limit on the Alfa’s cover, making it slightly more generous than the norm.

That said, if you’re one of those people that still sees Alfa Romeo as a premium brand, then you might be a little disappointed at the level of cabin quality to be found inside the Junior. The design is certainly interesting, with unconventional-looking shapes and surfaces on display, and there are also some interesting touches, like the squishy fabric panels on the centre console and immediately ahead of the front passenger. However, there are simply too many surfaces that are hard, scratchy and easily marked, and the fact that the leading edge of the dashboard is of that nature means that you’re always painfully aware of it, because it’s right there in your face.

What’s more, we could hear some of these interior panels creaking and flexing as the car jittered its way along the road, which didn’t fill us with confidence about the integrity of their assembly.