The Alfa Romeo Alfasud was widely considered a modern car when it was launched in 1972. It was powered by a boxer four-cylinder engine that spun the front wheels, and towards the end of its production run, it even benefited from a small hatchback.

Towards the end of the 1970s, an onslaught of more modern competitors like the Talbot Horizon and the Fiat Ritmo quickly slowed down Alfasud sales, which put cash-strapped Alfa Romeo in a bad spot. The company was aware that the ‘Sud was aging and it was busily working on a replacement, but it feared that by the time the car was launched, it would be too late. The Italian automaker knew better than to rush a car to the market, so it set off to find a different solution to the problem.

Alfa started looking to form a partnership with another automaker. It found an unlikely suitor in Japan’s Nissan, who was well-known for making bland but solid compact hatchbacks.

On October 9th of 1980, Alfa Romeo’s president Ettore Massacesi and Nissan president Takaschi Ishihara signed an agreement in Tokyo to form a joint-venture called Alfa Romeo Nissan Autoveicoli SpA, abbreviated as ARNA. The point of the partnership was to collaborate on small entry-level models, which the two companies hoped would reduce development costs across the board.

A new factory was built outside of Pratola Serra in central Italy to build the car. The basic idea was that Nissan would provide Cherry/Pulsar bodies and Alfa Romeo would provide Alfasud engines. The car was baptized the Arna in honor of the automakers’ new company.

In theory, the new car could be quickly put into production. In application, the agreement between the two was much more complicated than it seemed, and the Arna didn’t make its debut until the 1983 Frankfurt Motor Show.

The delay was blamed on issues that Alfa Romeo ran into while trying to fit its flat-four engine into the Cherry’s engine bay, which was designed to swallow a transversally-mounted straight-four.

The car’s front suspension and running gear also came from Alfa Romeo, while Nissan provided an independent rear suspension setup. The Cherry bodies were treated with zincrometal, which at the time was a fairly advanced rust-prevention method, finally solving one of the Alfasud’s biggest problems.

The Arna was poorly received in Frankfurt. It was considered heresy to put an Alfa emblem on a Nissan at the time; it was like if Alfa decided to rebadge a Dacia Logan today. Still, Alfa tried hard to market the car. Period ad campaigns used the slogan “e sei subito Alfista”, which translated to “and you’re suddenly an Alfa enthusiast.”

At its launch, the Arna was offered in two different versions: the three-door Arna L, and the five-door Arna SL. Both cars were powered by Alfa’s acclaimed 1,186cc flat-four. It was rated at 63 horsepower, and propelled the 1,873-pound car from zero to 62 miles per hour in 14.4 seconds.

Despite being sold at an affordable price, the car did not sell well at all in Italy. Nissan complicated the matter by prohibiting Alfa Romeo from selling it in certain European countries where the Pulsar was doing relatively well.

In 1985, Alfa introduced a performance-oriented version of the Arna called the Ti. It was fitted with a 1,350cc four-cylinder that was rated at 86 horsepower. That same year the L and SL models saw their horsepower go up to 65.

Nissan saw a golden opportunity in the Arna and exported the model to Japan. It was sold as the Nissan Pulsar Milano, and marketed as a GTi-esque version of the Pulsar.

By the middle of the 1980s it became evident that the Arna simply would not sell, and the model was phased out in 1987. It is estimated that a little over 26,000 examples of the car were built. The fiasco prompted Nissan and Alfa to quickly put an end to their partnership.