Italy Tells Alfa Romeo It's Illegal to Build the Milano in Poland

This past week, Alfa Romeo introduced its new Milano compact crossover. It's a vehicle we're unlikely to see here in the U.S., as it shares bones with Fiat's new 600 as well as the Jeep Avenger, and unfortunately for the automaker it's caused a bit of a stir with the local government. See, the Milano is built in Poland, like its Stellantis stablemates, but Italy happens to have rather strict rules about marketing products with Italian-sounding names that aren't actually built there. And now, officials are calling Alfa out.

"A car called Milano cannot be produced in Poland," Italy's industry minister, Adolfo Urso, said Thursday per Reuters. "[The] law stipulates that you cannot give indications that mislead consumers. So a car called Milano must be produced in Italy. Otherwise, it gives a misleading indication which is not allowed under Italian law."