Marchionne to Make Alfa Romeo a Stand-Alone Company
A report from Automotive News published this morning states that Fiat-Chrysler CEO, Sergio Marchionne, has plans to make the ever-struggling Alfa Romeo a stand-alone company within Fiat. This information comes from People Familiar with the Matter, close relatives of the Unnamed Sources guy I mentioned in my last post on Toyota’s business plans.
As a stand-alone company, Alfa Romeo would issue public profit and loss statements. One of the mysterious People Familiar with the Matter told Automotive News that “Marchionne needs to make Alfa’s P&L clearly visible” if he truly wants this relaunch of the brand to work.
This relaunch includes six new, rear-wheel-drive models for the dying company, which saw global deliveries fall a whopping 56 percent in 2013. The six new models will begin arriving at Fiat dealerships in 2016 and are promised to include a compact SUV and mid-sized sedan that will be produced at Fiat’s Cassino factory, a large sedan and large SUV that will be produced at Fiat’s Mirafiori plant, and a large coupe and a two-seat roadster that will be produced somewhere in Italy. Top trims of each of these six models will reportedly be powered by Ferrari-developed V6 engines.
While all this sounds promising for Alfa Romeo, I wouldn’t hold your breath quite yet. Marchionne will likely announce his plans to make Alfa Romeo a stand-alone company on May 6th, but it will hardly be his first. In fact, since he joined the Fiat brand back in 2004, Marchionne has made three other plans for Alfa Romeo, all of which have blown up in his face.
There’s got to be a word for “hoping for the best but expecting the worst.” I guess I’ll ask some GM drivers if they have a word for it.
Timothy Moore takes his leadership inspiration from Michael Scott, his writing inspiration from Mark Twain, and his dancing inspiration from every drunk white guy at a wedding. When Tim is not writing about cars and money, he’s working on his novel or reading someone else’s, geeking out over strategy board games, hiking with his pooch, or channeling his inner Linda Belcher over beers with his friends. See more articles by Timothy.