Alfa Romeo’s upcoming Mazda MX-5 sports car spinoff won’t be a road-going version of the 2uettottanta concept that debuted at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show, a new report finds.

Although a striking design, Marco Tencone, Alfa Romeo’s design chief, couldn’t find a viable way to turn the 2uettottanta into a production vehicle. Instead, Tencone’s team will create a modern body for the sports car with a few retro design cues.

“The new Spider definitely won’t be retro in design,” an inside source told our source. “The Spider has to be contemporary and must fit into the range with the modern 4C.”

Another source added: “It would have been easy to go for a retro, boat-tail design, but how would that fit in with the 4C and today’s Alfa designs?”

Although the Alfa Spider will be built by Mazda in Japan, the car will share just 40 percent of its components with eh MX-5. One of the unique features of the Spider will be a 1.4L turbocharged four-cylinder tuned to develop 168 horsepower.

That powerplant should return some decent performance figures thanks to the Spider’s targeted sub-2,400 curb weight.

The new MX-5 is scheduled to debut in early 2015, but we might not see the Alfa version until November of that year.