Europe in the United Kingdom and Spain. Italian built cars badged as Nissan Cherry Europe can be readily identified by their rear lighting clusters, which match those of the Arna rather than the Japanese built Cherry. Although no variants of the Italian built Arna were ever sold in Japan, a domestic version of the N12 Nissan Pulsar, labelled the Nissan Pulsar Milano X1, made use of the Alfa Romeo connection in its publicity and was fitted with the same black and green interior as the Arna Ti or Cherry Europe GTi. The model was entirely N12 based, though, and featured the usual transversely mounted Nissan E engine. While British Leyland and Honda had a limited partnership in the United Kingdom at that time, the Nissan and Alfa Romeo alliance was the first of its kind between a European and Japanese automaker with joint investment into manufacturing and development. It was feared by the European Economic Community and ironically, Alfa's future parent Fiat, that the success of this partnership would create a Trojan horse, enabling Japanese automakers to compete "unfairly" in Europe, and thereby take sales away from other European auto-makers. However, such fears were quickly allayed upon the Arna's release when it became obvious that the Arna exhibited the worst qualities of each of its parents. The Arna featured tempestuous mechanicals, rust prone bodywork and indifferent build quality courtesy of Alfa Romeo, married to a Nissan body of questionable build and frumpy, box like styling, with insipid handling common to Japanese cars of the time. This mismatch of technical strengths served to kill the sales of the Arna very rapidly. As the car gained a reputation for poor build quality and questionable reliability, sales of the Nissan badged Cherry Europe sister car also nosedived, as loyal Nissan customers shunned it in favour of the "genuine" Japanese built Cherry instead. By 1986, Alfa Romeo's parent company, the Italian government owned Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale was suffering from heavy losses, and IRI president Romano Prodi put Alfa Romeo up for sale, with Fiat ultimately emerging as the new owner of Alfa. Fiat's first decision was to cease Arna production owing to its poor reputation and poor sales, and to terminate the unsuccessful Alfa Romeo Nissan alliance. Production ceased in 1987, with Fiat intending to strengthen the competitiveness of the Alfa Romeo 33 as Alfa's entry in that segment. By this time,