Filed under: Sedan, Europe, Plants/Manufacturing, Chrysler, Alfa Romeo, Fiat
Fiat's plan for re-entry to the U.S. market includes
Alfa Romeo, as well as pumping up its Chrysler interests. While Alfa has desirable hatches like the
MiTo and the
147, the company thinks it might have the best luck relaunching in the States with its upcoming Giulia sedan. The Alfa Romeo division is a money sink right now for Fiat, and successfully re-entering the US market could open the door to better financials. To make the relaunch of Alfa feasible, the brand is going to have to share with Chrysler.
Chrysler has the LX platform, which
could potentially be reworked and used for the new Giulia, is being examined as one way to get an Alfa model launched and built in the U.S. without crushing Fiat with shipping and import costs piled on top of being expensive to build in the first place. The LX is heavier than might be ideal, though it has been engineered to support all-wheel drive, and the rear-wheel drive default of the longitudinal powertrain layout is inherently more sporty if tuned properly. Alfa's got its own platform, the
C-Evo, which could be bulked up to underpin the Giulia, and it, too, is a front-engined, RWD layout that could potentially bring an appropriately athletic feel.
Neither platform is exactly perfect - both are aging, and the competition in the segment is stiff. The futures of Alfa and Chrysler appear to be intertwined, with both brands relying on the same basic hardware to launch new or updated models that need to be successful for Sergio Marchionne's plan for world domination to actually work.
[Source:
Bloomberg]
REPORT: Alfa favors larger sedan as first salvo in new American push originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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04-08-2009, 11:20 PM
