In bringing Alfa Romeo back to the U.S. market this year, Fiat has three big goals for the move: broadening the car lineup of its joint stable with Chrysler Group; trying to re-establish an Alfa brand that long ago was tarnished in America; and boosting output at its home-market manufacturing operations in Italy.
Fiat and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne told Reuters at the Detoit Auto Show that Fiat plans to introduce an Alfa Romeo 4C sports car to the U.S. market late this year. Marchionne said that the biggest remaining obstacle is to "make sure we hit the powertrains dead on." Still, he told the news service, "We are finalizing the car now, so it should be" in the U.S. this year.
From an American perspective, Alfa Romeo is one of the wild cards that got thrown into the deck when Fiat acquired the carcass of Chrysler from the U.S. government in 2009. It exited the U.S. market about two decades ago with a tattered quality reputation. Now, Marchionne has built the marque into one that would have a shot even in today's highly competitive U.S. market.
Marchionne is looking for ways to extend the offerings (and market share) of the Fiat-Chrysler family. They're still very short on cars: Chrysler and Dodge combined offer only a few, and every Fiat in the U.S. so far has been some version of the 500. Eventually, Alfa's mainstream sedans could be welcome on American showroom floors.
In the meantime, Marchionne is opening the U.S. to Alfa again via the 4C, a two-seat sports car that makes sense as a wedge for re-establishing the brand in the United States. Get speed demons and early adopters to embrace Alfa Romeo again, and the way becomes wider for some of the brand's other vehicles.
Fiat also is eager—like other European automakers—to shuffle more units of all sorts for sale in the U.S., whose market is still strengthening, while Europe's remains in the tank. Fiat wants to avoid cutting its Italian workforce any more than it has to.
Interestingly, the other latest news from Fiat concerns a deal that will have Mazda building a new two-door Alfa roadster at Mazda's plant in Hiroshima beginning in 2015. Marchionne said the deal would support Alfa Romeo's U.S. comeback by supplying it with a new vehicle that will share an assembly line and innards—but apparently not much exterior styling—with a new version of the Mazda MX-5 Miata roadster.
Fiat wants to take advantage of Mazda powertrain technology, although the strong yen and related higher manufacturing costs are a down side to the deal. Whatever it takes to re-establish Alfa Romeo in the United States, Marchionne seems willing to do.
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