Rumorpile: Next Alfa Romeo Giulietta To Go Rear Drive

Alfa, an over rated product that should have been left in the history books rather than the raping of Chrysler, Dodge, Ram and Jeep money to try and resurrect the pathetic auto line.

Alfa, an over rated product that should have been left in the history books rather than the raping of Chrysler, Dodge, Ram and Jeep money to try and resurrect the pathetic auto line.

Normally, I should feel the same you do about Alfa, that their  time has come and gone and its time for Alfa to join the rest of the dead automobiles in the sky.

But...I am still seduced by the notion that Alfa is still a sexy brand, making cars that have  sexy lines to continue to seduce us all, especially in 2015 when most car manufactures produce very bland and very ugly cars.

Alas, this notion of mine is definitely a dreamer's dream, I cant help but be an optimist with and for Alfa.

I do agree that Sergio should STOP raping Chryco...

With me....if one FCA brand should kick the bucket, 'tis Fiat...

Alfa should be like BMW....

Econo and lux in Europe

Lux in North America. and lower trimmed Euro Alfas be sold in North America as entry level lux...

There is no need for Fiat as econobox and mainstream  as Alfa could fill those shoes better than Fiat could...

I would try to save Lancia instead and pair them up with Dodge and have Abarth and SRT work together as both Dodge and Lancia could be the affordable performance brand...while Alfa is...like BMW...luxury.

It's all a pipe dream.

Though I did like the expensive re-jiggering of SHAP... they really did do the about the same level of plant upgrades that happened to Ford's Dearborn truck plant.

There's just nothing else that is fantastically new and note-worthy for FCA US LLC.

Some refreshes here and there on the old guard, some models killed. Most importantly the newest products were themselves built on a platform that was not so robust to being with. It required some decent re-engineering with a lot of weight added to a compact platform meant for small cars in Europe.

This is why the Dart, Cherokee, and 200 are obscenely heavy for their respective classes. You do get some niche equipment that is inherent to each brand...and clear styling delineations for vehicles that do share platforms. But it's not the optimal products that FCA really needs.

What they need is what they have still sorely lacked. With gas cheap, Jeep and RAM will continue to take care of themselves. Even if Alfa is fully revived, it still has to prove its worth with good sales and there needs to be a continual pipeline for products for it too. The car brand is lauching with sedans. That itself probably wasn't the best idea.

In any event.. I would like Alfa and Jeep to share showrooms. They are both heritage brands. They really are. Top end Jeeps are fully able to compete in many ways against the Germs... why not have cross-marketing to direct the Jeep aficinado who already has a Import-rival utility to get an imported conventional import rival as the fun sedan?

Fiat is such as small car maker in the world now. 

Trying to save Lancia rather than Alfa is kinda like trying to save a guy wth the plague instead of a guy with the flu. At least with Alfa you got a decent future platform and a few nameplates. Lancia is... gone.

Trying to save Lancia rather than Alfa is kinda like trying to save a guy wth the plague instead of a guy with the flu. At least with Alfa you got a decent future platform and a few nameplates. Lancia is... gone.

Well I think Alfa has a great chance in Europe actually, perhaps China as well. Anything expensive and well-made should do well in China.

Marketing. Here you need some nice marketing folks to get the product out there.

The Alfa engines are designed by the same people who make Ferrari engines... That is worth a lot of intangible cred. Deployed effectively, and with plenty of SUV juice, it can work. But it requires very high excellence of execution.

If Sergio went real cray cray, imagine SRT having access to atleast some of the same engines or similar engine tech as Alfa's hand me downs from Ferrari. That would be amazing, not that SRT is lacking in V8s or crazyness to begin with.

I said...save Lancia instead of...FIAT.

In all honesty....Lancia, Fiat AND Alfa all have at least one foot in their perspective graves. 

And THAT has got me worried about Chryco's over all health too.

Maybe not Jeep and ahem...RAM, but Chrysler and Dodge.

In all of this discussion we find that the only efficiency tech coming from FCA is diesels and a hybrid minivan.

FCA just doesn't sell a lot of small cars that by default are efficient. Maybe the Jeep Renegade will change that, but it's not a 40 mpg+ vehicle.

FCA needs more of those too. The Dart's refresh was pushed back... and I will say, the vehicle has not aged that well at all. It just got lost.

The 200 is nice in some flavours, but it's only one year old and it's already kind of an obscure choice. Maybe because the refreshes of the Accord, Camry, Mazda 6 and incoming Fusion, and of course the new Malibu just are so much noise that drones out the 200's song.

 

Trying to save Lancia rather than Alfa is kinda like trying to save a guy wth the plague instead of a guy with the flu. At least with Alfa you got a decent future platform and a few nameplates. Lancia is... gone.

 

Well I think Alfa has a great chance in Europe actually, perhaps China as well. Anything expensive and well-made should do well in China.

 

Marketing. Here you need some nice marketing folks to get the product out there.

 

The Alfa engines are designed by the same people who make Ferrari engines... That is worth a lot of intangible cred. Deployed effectively, and with plenty of SUV juice, it can work. But it requires very high excellence of execution.

 

If Sergio went real cray cray, imagine SRT having access to atleast some of the same engines or similar engine tech as Alfa's hand me downs from Ferrari. That would be amazing, not that SRT is lacking in V8s or crazyness to begin with.

 

That is exactly my reasoning....also...Fiat in Europe is econo and mainstream...but Alfa was/is econo and mainstream too, no need for both, but because Alfa used to do luxury and race cars and Alfa was actually the FIRST to be sport sedan, Alfa could EASILY copy BMW's business model....because Alfa IS Italy's BMW, with a richer racing heritage and much much sexier cars.

I said...save Lancia instead of...FIAT.

 

In all honesty....Lancia, Fiat AND Alfa all have at least one foot in their perspective graves. 

 

And THAT has got me worried about Chryco's over all health too.

Maybe not Jeep and ahem...RAM, but Chrysler and Dodge.

Sorry man, misread. But even Fiat is in better shape than Lancia.

Sergio's spinoff of Ferrari is their last, best chance to get development cash for their European ops. They need this platform, and they need to give it to Dodge and Chrysler as well as their European brands. If they show any preference to Europe at all, they're screwed.

Bundle your product that you also want to sell with your most successful ones.

Alfa dealers should be with Jeep dealers. At first it'll be a true WTF??!!!

But then you have Jeep, which is already being positioned as an upmarket brand and is coming up because it retains true off-road prowess where its upmarket and luxury competitors lack to varying degrees.

And then you have a brand that you truly want to push to new heights.... you might as well place it together with the one brand that generates the most interest for the entire company.

I think emulating the Jaguar & Land Rover Model, with a distinct Jeep and Alfa spin to it... actually makes some hurdles of getting people to the vehicles, as in to step within the dealership very simple.

 

I said...save Lancia instead of...FIAT.

 

In all honesty....Lancia, Fiat AND Alfa all have at least one foot in their perspective graves. 

 

And THAT has got me worried about Chryco's over all health too.

Maybe not Jeep and ahem...RAM, but Chrysler and Dodge.

Sorry man, misread. But even Fiat is in better shape than Lancia.

Sergio's spinoff of Ferrari is their last, best chance to get development cash for their European ops. They need this platform, and they need to give it to Dodge and Chrysler as well as their European brands. If they show any preference to Europe at all, they're screwed.

 

No probs, man.

And yeah...THAT is what Im afraid of.

The temptation that Daimler had over Chryco...in that those Euro retards use Jeep for the cash cowness to primp up Euro ops.  The more years pass on this latest Chryco merger....the more it looks like another "merger of equals".

PS.

I agree with you.

Lancia died a slow death. A slow painful death eerily similar in how Oldsmobile died.

I just have a vision in my head as to how Lancia could be revived. And that would be to have Dodge and SRT and Lancia and Abarth be part of the performance arm of FCA since FCA no longer has Ferrari. Alfa engineers could work with SRT and Abarth as Alfa engineers no onger have Ferrari.

The only new Lancias sold today are rebadged Chrysler 300s and only sold in Italy.

Oldsmobile didn't die a slow death.  The plug was pulled when they had some of the best products GM was offering. They were one of the first with Navigation systems in GM.  They had brand new V6 engines, and they had one of the youngest overall lineups in the company. 

The only new Lancias sold today are rebadged Chrysler 300s and only sold in Italy.

 

Oldsmobile didn't die a slow death.  The plug was pulled when they had some of the best products GM was offering. They were one of the first with Navigation systems in GM.  They had brand new V6 engines, and they had one of the youngest overall lineups in the company. 

Yet...in 1999, Oldsmobile decided to go with a pushrod 3.4 liter V6. When its brother Intrigue ditched the other, yet proven pushrod 3.8 liter V6 and went with a very modern Shortstar V6, one that they designed...even for Cadillac. Northstar V8.

Maybe Oldsmobile should have went with that Shortstar 3.5 in the Alero and go in another direction rather than just follow in Pontiac's footsteps...

Sure, the Aurora had an on par interior with Cadillacs, but by that time, Oldsmobile no longer sold the way they did in the 1980s...

Why I said they died a slow death....because after the rockin' 1980s, in between having the best General Motors products in the mid  to late 1990s and into the 2000s where they were lay to sleep, the early 1990s is where Oldsmobile languished, where GM favoured production money and R&D money to such endeavors as Saturn and SAAB. GEO and Subaru.

The one good product to come out of the early to mid 1990s Oldsmobile was indeed the first gen Aurora.

However, crap such as the Achieva, 2nd generation Silhouette, should have NEVER been authorized for Oldsmobile.

The Grand Am for that generation was good enough for Pontiac.  Not for Oldsmobile, or Buick for that matter. The Achieva should have been what the Alero was....the Alero came a decade too late.

Oldsmobile in the early 1990s still had badge engineered  Delta 88s...that were re-worked twice...changed name to Eighty-Eight and took a face lift a second time to coincide with a new fresh start to have a face like an Aurora...

Oldsmobile also had that W-Body Cutlass Supreme. Fantastic car, for a late 1980s Oldsmobile generation...but looooong in the tooth by the mid 1990s. Due to the fact that the Japanese competition in Lexus and Acura and Infiniti took no prisoners.

Oldsmobile also had the Cutlass Cierra. Even Chevrolet ditched the Celebrity and went with a better vehicle. A loooooong in the tooth W-body Lumina....but still. Pontiac ditched the 6000 in favor for the very same looooong in the toooth W-Body Grand Prix. Yeah, I know....Cierras still sold like hot cakes...however, when Oldsmobile decided to tackle the imports and the Aurora was the one to lead the charge, crap like this  should have NEVER been acceptable for Oldsmobile.

Also...finally, when the Cierra was retired, a badge engineered Malibu replaced it...and badge engineered Malibu is being kind.

It really was a Malibu...

Only to have Oldsmobile cancel the Malibu in favor of the Alero anyway....which did not make too much sense as both the Malibu, Grand Am and Alero were from the same platform...albeit the Grand Am and Alero were revised and improved...and the Alero was made to be in the same market as the Cierra to begin with...

The Alero, even with the 3.4 liter engine, still outsold the Cierra...because it was clear as daylight which car was superior....

GM/Olds just went with the Cierra because they probably felt GM sheeple would just flock to it...just because Cierra was its name...yet...on an Alero...OLDSMOBILE was kept on the hush hush becasuse Oldsmobile was said to head in another direction, and wanted to show that Alero REALLY was not your father's Oldsmobile...

Weird, huh?

In one corner, you are saying to your customers, forget the better Alero, go for the Cierra because THIS is what you are used to getting with Oldsmobille and in the other corner, you are telling your customers...No really, this Oldsmobile is NOT what your father drove....yes we know, we told you that fib before, but its true this time...look....no Oldsmobile badges...anywhere on the car....we even changed the logo for you...

The Silhouette was still crap in the late 1990s...

The other good thing about Oldsmobile....was that the Bravada was probably the best version of that SUV at that point in time before SAAB and Buick got Old's version.

Like I said...the Intrigue, the Alero...which could have been THAT much more and the Aurora should have been the ONLY models...instead, when walking into an Oldsmobile showroom,in the late 1990s... people were confused...new generation Oldsmobile was there...however, old and bad and distasteful General Motors cheapened Oldsmobile was also present.   And THAT is why I still stand by of what I said that Oldsmobile died a slow and painful death.

Lansing Michigan employees knew what Oldsmobile was capable of....it must have been very painful for them to see billions of R&D money go to SAAB, Saturn, Fuji Heavy, GEO, and FIAT only to get crumbs, only to dangle good products knowing that if they have those billions, those good products would have been great, and MORE than enough to stick it to the Japanese and the Germans...staying true to what GM said Oldsmobile's mission was, to offer Americans real competition to the imports.  Ill leave out Saturn as Saturn employees probably felt the same way Oldsmobile employees felt... with the same promises, an answer to import competition.

Well, the Alero was being sold at a price. The Shortstar was too expensive to put in a car that maxed out around $23k. 

I get that...sold at a price.

They had Chevrolet, Pontiac and Saturn to fill that price niche.

Oldsmobile tried very hard to keep an image of its former self.

Engineering a car to a price point is what killed Oldsmobile then.

What GM did, was screw Oldsmobile.

Saturn had the L Series Sedan, from Europe.

Pontiac the Grand Am

and Oldsmobile the Alero all in the same price range.

Alero would have benefited if they did go more premium. Offer the Shortstar...and give the Acura EL a run for its money...kinda like how the Verano is doing to the ILX today.

It took GM 15 years to finally get this right....better late than never, I guess.

It only cost them Pontiac and Oldsmobile...Saturn.

Bankruptcy.

If they had the cojones to make the Alero premium, what the Alero TRULY deserved, maybe 'tis Acura that would not have survived...

Think about it...its not as if the last 15 years have been kind to Acura....other than its SUVs...

The TL in the early 2000s was a bust!

It took the 2005 model to gain success again.

Then the super beak TL hit the streets.

The TLX aint all that.

The TSX either, that is why it is no longer.

The ILX is a bust too.

Think about it....the Alero, would have beat the European Accord/Acura TLX by 1 whole generation...4 years to be exact.

Yeah...I think Ill stand by my words. Oldsmobile died a slow and painful death.