Alfa Romeo Junior Ibrida long term test: report 6
Our chief photographer wanted an economical car that he'd enjoy racking up miles in, and that won't shirk a bit of hard work...
The car Alfa Romeo Junior Ibrida Run by John Bradshaw, chief photographer
Why it’s here To find out if this small SUV is as practical and easy to live with as it is full of Italian brio
Needs to Be comfortable on motorway trips, entertaining on country roads, frugal everywhere and practical all the time
Mileage 9332 List price £33,295 Best Price £27,499 Price as tested £33,295 Official economy 57.6mpg Test economy 47.0mpg
6 January 2026 – Equipped to bursting point
A memorable scene in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life has one Mr Creosote violently exploding after a cripplingly substantial meal, showering everybody in the restaurant with semi-digested food after his galloping gluttony led to him reluctantly accept a “wafer-thin mint”. I do my best not to over-eat, but whenever I come close to it, I think of an expensive option pack that's fitted to my Alfa Romeo Junior Ibrida.
The Technology Pack costs £2200, so adding it to my car’s spec list wasn’t a decision taken lightly – like eating a chocolate with an already full stomach. Looking back, though, I’m glad I chose it, because it was the only way of adding certain features that I find indispensable; you can’t add options individually with the Junior, only in packages.
For one thing, it brings a lot of extra infotainment system functionality, not least a reversing camera with ‘dynamic gridlines’, and this has proven a real help when manoeuvring in tight spaces. I’ve used similar systems before in other cars, but the projected guidelines that show up on the Junior’s 10.25in infotainment screen are particularly easy to follow.
The Technology Pack is also the only way to add built-in sat-nav to the Junior, plus it boosts the sound system’s speaker tally from four to six and gives you wireless phone charging.
Away from infotainment, the pack adds certain practical features that I’d find hard to live without, and the electric tailgate is a particular example; I can usually more easily free up a finger to press a button than an entire hand to lift a manual tailgate out of the way.
Once up, incidentally, the tailgate performs reasonably well as a rain shelter; protecting me from the elements while I gather my tools for the photoshoot at hand.
I’ve noticed, though, that if left for too long fully open, the tailgate seems to forget that it’s electrically operated. I once kept it open for 15 minutes, and after that no end of button presses could persuade it to close. At length I found that locking the car and then unlocking it again was required to wake it up.
More intelligently, the positioning of the LED lamps that illuminate the rear number plate allows them to do handy double duty in illuminating the ground immediately outside the boot, and that’s helped me when loading camera gear when daylight hours are short.
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