The future of the the
Fiat Group's Alfa Romeo division continues to dominate
much of the conversation in Paris and following VW
Chairman Ferdinand Piech's comments on Wednesday, Group
CEO Martin Winterkorn has also expressed interest in the
struggling brand.
Piech's comments at a
pre-show VW Group gala evening saw Fiat CEO Sergio
Marchionne respond yesterday by telling reporters at the
Paris Motor Show: "None of our brands are up for sale."
Marchionne only late last year publicaly questioned the
very future of the Alfa Romeo brand and froze
development of new models while he carried out a
comprehensive review of the unit.
The Fiat Group
acquired Alfa Romeo in 1986 to prevent the other suitor,
Ford, from gaining Italian factory capacity and its
stewardship of the sports brand over the intervening
quarter of a century has been little short of dismal.
The brand, which has now quit its birth city Milan, has
never been given a coherent strategy by Fiat executives
or boasted a fully joined-up model range, instead it has
staggered from one "vital to its survival" new model to
the next, with most of these products exhibiting flaws.
Only really with the arrival this summer of the new
C-segment Giulietta hatchback, coming to the showrooms a
decade after the launch of its segment predecessor, has
Alfa Romeo introduced a fully all-round accomplished
model that has been thoroughly developed and in
particular launched with the right engine range and
technology.
Alfa Romeo reportedly
loses around 200 million euros a year, although the Fiat
Group doesn't break down individual brand financial
statistics. This year the input of the new Giulietta is
estimated by Fiat to be set to help the brand's sales
climb to around the 150-160,000 unit mark.
Following Piech's
comments in which he hinted at the Fiat Group sliding
into further financial trouble and having little option
but to sell in around two years time, Volkswagen Group
CEO Martin Winterkorn has also stated that the German
car maker, which is aggressively targeting taking over
Toyota's global number one spot by 2018, would be
interested in Alfa Romeo. "Alfa is a very emotional
brand," he told Autocar yesterday. "If Fiat
considers selling, we’d be interested." He also poured
some scorn on the products that Alfa Romeo has turned
out in recent years, telling the British magazine: "It’s
a beautiful brand but there are quality issues with the
engines and suspension systems for example. I’m quite
sure we could make a beautiful brand out of Alfa again."
Winterkorn also noted that Alfa Romeo's global sales
have slumped by nearly two-thirds from its highs of
300,000.
Meanwhile, the
Financial Times last night quoted an unnamed VW
executive as confirming that the German carmaker, which
owns a plethora of brands including Audi, Lamborghini,
SEAT, Porsche and Skoda, seriously looked to buy Alfa
Romeo during the onset of the last crisis at the Fiat
Group in the early years of the previous decade and
would have used it to replace its own SEAT brand.
Curiously he also told FT that VW recently sent
some of its Italian born managers to meet with Milan's
mayor, as well as representatives of the regional
government of Lombardy, to lobby for support to acquire
Alfa Romeo. This secret delegation could well have
included Luca De Meo, the VW Group's marketing chief,
who is a former rising star within Fiat, having headed
the Fiat Automobiles brand (including having
responsibility for launching the new Fiat 500) and was
then parachuted into Alfa Romeo as CEO to restructure
the ailing division before he jumped ship to the German
company.
