What the hell is going on with Alfa Romeo? Hardly a week goes by without some bold-faced headline trumpeting the importance of the once-venerated, now almost forgotten brand.
Ferdinand Piech, architect of the vast Volkswagen empire (now comprised of 12 brands and counting), is supposedly so enamoured with the brand that he was willing to buy all of Fiat-Chrysler to attain it. Reid Bigland, Fiat-Chrysler’s rising star (and CEO of Chrysler Canada), sees such a future in the storied marque that he was willing to leave his (part-time) position as the head of the company’s all-important Ram truck division to take over Alfa Romeo’s much ballyhooed (and frequently delayed) incursion into North America. And Sergio Marchionne, the be-sweatered leader of Fiat and Chrysler’s resurrection, is not only going to spend five billion euros (more than he paid for all of Chrysler) but delay his retirement for two years to ensure that the 104-year-old automaker’s rejuvenation is complete.
Also read: Our review of the gorgeous Alfa Romeo 4C
Their ardour is hardly surprising. After all this is the marque that has brought us the achingly gorgeous 33 Stradale, the all-conquering 8C 2300, one of the most coveted race cars of all time, and the Spider, a car so beautiful that even the young and testosterone-fueled — as I was when The Graduate came out — paid absolutely no attention to Anne Bancroft’s oft-naked leg lest it divert our attention from Dustin Hoffman’s bright red 1600 Duetto. Even the company’s more mainstream efforts remain standouts, the late ’60s 1750 runabout, for instance, a far better car than the more lauded BMW 2002 of the same era.
So why, amidst all this fawning, do I find myself so ambivalent about the resurrection of a brand I hold in such high regard?
Brand logos to visualize the evolution of the Alfa Romeo logo .
Handout photo, Fiat S.p.A./Alfa Romeo Automobiles S.p.A.
It certainly isn’t because the company’s stylistic genius is a thing rooted only in the past. There is simply no car of the last 10 years — super or otherwise — more artfully penned than Alfa’s limited production 8C Competizione. Nor is it that Milanese machines are all show and no go; the 4C is essentially all the mid-engined, carbon-fibred technology that makes the McLaren P1 such a technical tour de force in a package that costs less than a Porsche Boxster.
And yet the analysts remain unconvinced.
Perhaps it’s because Marchionne’s plans seem so outrageous. For one thing, Fiat-Chrylser’s majordomo wants Alfa Romeo to be selling 400,000 cars per year by 2018, a monumental ask considering that the company’s sales last year were a paltry 74,000. Or that 150,000 of those sales will supposedly come from North America where only those on the hip-replacement side of 50 can remember an Alfa rolling off a new car showroom.
More confounding is Mr. Marchionne’s edict that Alfa Romeo will target Audi and Porsche (one has to wonder how much of Alfa’s specifically targeting the VW Group products is Mr. Marchionne’s revenge for Mr. Piech’s belittling of Fiat’s efforts to resurrect Alfa!) with its new eight-car lineup. If reports are accurate, there will be an A6/A7 competitor, badged Giulia, that will offer up to 500 horsepower in order to compete with Audi’s twice-turbocharged RS7. Mr. Marchionne also envisions an A8-sized flagship sedan that will have to also compete with the might of Mercedes-Benz’s S-Class. Besides the 4C (the only model from the current three-car lineup that will survive), there will also be a new Spider roadster and, if Auto Express has its facts straight, a 6C super coupe that will look to do battle with Porsche’s 911. Of course, there will be SUVs, no serious automaker capable of resisting the lure of off-road lucre: Alfa plans both BMW X3 and X5 competitors. And rounding off the lineup will be an entry-level luxury sedan looking to do battle with BMW’s segment dominating 3 Series and Audi’s A4.
The Alfa Romeo 4C will be available through 86 new dealerships across the U.S. and Canada
Handout, Alfa Romeo
Never mind that we thought this was precisely the position that Fiat-Chrsyler was trying to carve out for Maserati, but the hard-nosed fact is that Alfa has precious little history of playing in the upper echelons of the luxury segment. Despite its storied past, most of the company’s products — even the sportiest of its sedans and coupes — have been of the cheap and cheerful variety; of the almost 8 million cars Alfa has produced since 1910, less than 1% have played in the rarified luxury segment Mr. Marchionne now covets. Indeed, both of Alfa’s current mainstream products — the Mito and Giulietta — are budget-priced hatchbacks.
Nor will it be a simple task for Alfa to expand to Mr. Marchionne’s proposed eight-car lineup. Never mind that any mainstream automaker would have trouble moving from three-model lines — two if you discount the extremely limited production of the 4C — to eight, but it’s hard not to be skeptical of Alfa’s ambitions. Indeed, those in the reporting business have learned to take the company’s product pronouncements with a grain of salt. Yes, we absolutely guarantee the 4C will be in North America by the spring of 2014; oops, maybe we’ll see them by Christmas. Hey, Mazda’s newest-generation MX-5 Miata will spawn an all-new Spider; oops, that program is cancelled (the proposed little runabout will now be branded Fiat).
All of this pessimism, it must be said, comes from the left side of my brain, that supposedly rational, always fun-destroying thought centre that lauds reasoned analysis and strict business formulae. The right side, the segment devoted to creativity and wild-eyed optimism, is meanwhile screaming “Go! Go! Go!” praying that Mr. Marchionne does indeed have all those billions to blow, that Mr. Bigland’s charm can indeed coax thousands of skeptical Americans into Giulias and 6Cs and, most of all, that there is indeed a place in our automotive marketplace for sexy Italians, no matter if they be quirky and temperamental. The world has more than enough logic.
dbooth@nationalpost.com
Twitter: @MotorMouthNP
