Pat Devereux
A VOICE OF REASON IN THE LAND OF THE FREE PART 14: ALFA ROMEO’S RETURN
It has to if the company’s masterplan, to sell 400,000 cars a year, is going to unfold the way the company wants it to. You can’t have those kind of volume expectations – 150,000 of which is hoped to come from the US – without ensuring the US buys into the brand.
Will Alfa work in the US this time?
And how is it going to do that?
There is still a lot of afection for Alfa Romeo in the US, so it’s of to a good start. People here want to like Alfa and seem to have forgotten the often-awful cars that last graced the US shores wearing the Italian badge.
When were Alfas last sold in the US – and why did it stop?
Fiat announced it would stop building Alfas for the US in 1995, 34 years after it had started importing them, then turned of the tap at the end of that year. The reason given by the company was that it couldn’t justify the cost of adapting future models to United States specifcations. But the truth was the factory could only produce so many cars, and Alfa could sell them in Europe without the extra expense of having to adjust their spec for the US.
What cars was it selling then?
The last cars on the Alfa lot were the 164, the old version of the Spider convertible and the 75-based Milano. All great to drive for a few days, but horrible to own, thanks to questionable build quality and reliability. They had character, but they had problems too. Lots of them.
Why is it OK for it to return to the US now?
Twenty years seems like a suitable period of time to let the doubts fade and the romance remain. But Alfa has had more than one false dawn about its US return. The rumours started in 2005, then were confrmed in May 2006. But all that happened was a few 8Cs were sold in 2008. From there it was on again, of again, as Fiat bought Chrysler, until the launch of the 4C in 2013. Now is the right time, the company says, as it has fnally locked down the multi-billion-dollar funding required to produce and market a full range of cars.
And what are those going to be?
Well, the 4C Coupe and Convertible. The new Giulia plus coupes and crossovers. Eight new cars by 2018. So there could be the right mix to attract US buyers.
Are they going to be good enough to steal sales from the German and British brands?
The 4C Coupe and Convertible aren’t representative of the whole Alfa range. And that’s just as well. As gorgeous as they are to behold, the drivetrains and chassis feel like they were developed separately then married at the end of the production line. So they argue with each other and it’s not always fun. They are fne on a racetrack where you can be precise with inputs, but in mixed road driving they feel awkward. You just want to take them to Lotus and leave them there for a month to be sorted out.
Oh dear, that doesn’t sound promising.
Don’t worry. Yet. Those are just two super-limited-run cars. The mainstream ones are on an entirely diferent architecture. The company has too much riding on this to do anything other than everything to make it work. The real problem is how they are going to get US drivers to appreciate the value of driving an Alfa.
So how is it going to do that?
Clearly Alfa’s Italian heritage is a big selling point, but this being the US, it’s all going to come down to lease prices. And that’s where the headache starts. BMW and Merc sell hundreds of thousands of cars in the US and so have bargain lease prices. For Alfa to get anywhere near those, it’s going to have to do some clever accounting.
Doesn’t that just mean US buyers will get their new Alfas more cheaply than us?
Yes. Just like they do with all the other imported cars. It’s a cost of business in the US. Get it right and Alfa could soar. But get it wrong and the red paint will be swapped for loss-denoting red ink in the accounts again. All of it, across the Swiss
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