With the Giulia and Stelvio launched just a few years ago, Alfa Romeo is firmly back on the map with a compelling lineup. It even still offers the 4C Spider, though it's beginning to show its age. What it needs now is a sports coupe... something, say, along the lines of the GTL, designed by independent Italian studio Born Custom and shared on Behance.

Imagined as a two-door counterpart to the Giulia sedan, the GTL cuts a handsome profile all its own, and we have to admit to being rather smitten.

We dig the front-end styling especially, a clean line delineating the edge between the hood and the nose and overscoring the headlights and shield grille. And there's lots more to love here, from the creased flank to the details – like the shape and graphics of the headlights and taillamps, the elegant camera arms in place of side mirrors, the subtle use of carbon fiber, the dual center-exit exhaust pipes, and the decklid spoiler integrated into the trunk lid. We're more impressed, however, with the sum of the parts than the parts themselves.

Rather than go over the top with an extroverted design, the Alfa GTL concept is impressively understated and elegant, yet subtly aggressive at the same time. That's a hard mix to pull off convincingly, but the creatives at Born Custom have done a proper job of it. Now if only FCA would approve such a vehicle for production to fill the void left by the equally gorgeous Brera and once again take on the likes of the BMW 4 Series, Audi A5, and Mercedes-Benz C-Class Coupe... even the M4, RS5, and C63, in full-on Quadrifoglio spec. But for now we'd just be happy to see an Italian coupe like this hit the road.