• News
  • Guides
  • Reviews
  • Media
  • About
  • News
  • Guides
  • Reviews
  • Media
  • About
Sign up Now (For Free)

Sign up for our newsletter and receive the latest automotive news in your inbox!

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Thanks for subscribing!
News
Read Now
  • All News
  • Automakers
  • Automobiles
  • Auto Shows
  • Business
  • EVs & Environment
  • Guides
  • Lawsuits/Legal
  • Regulatory
  • Ride-Sharing
  • Safety & Recalls
  • Technology
Recent
  • Tesla Owners Stung by Capitalism
  • Mercedes Updates GLE Models for 2024 Model Year
  • First Look: Mazda’s Bigger, More Luxurious New CX-90
  • GM Net Income Rises for Q4 But Falls for Full Year 2022
  • GMC Launches Production of Hummer SUV; Needs Until 2024 to Fill Outstanding Orders
  • Vehicle Sales Up for January Despite Ongoing Challenges
  • Bidding Adieu to Bugatti’s W16 Engine
  • Ford “Significantly” Raising Production of Mustang Mach-E While Reducing Prices “Across the Board”
  • Week Ahead: Numbers, Numbers and More Numbers
  • The Rearview Mirror: All That the Name Implies
Editor’s Choice
    Reviews
    Read Now
    • All Reviews
      • Feeder
    • Classic Cars
    • Concept Cars
    • Convertibles
    • Coupes
    • Crossovers/CUVs
    • Diesel
    • Hot hatches
    • Hybrids
    • Luxury Vehicles
    • Minivans
    • Muscle Cars
    • Pickups
    • Sedans
    • Sports Cars
    • Super Cars
    • SUVs
    Recent Reviews
    • A Week With: 2023 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy
    • A Week With: 2023 Ford F-150 Raptor R 4x4 Super Crew
    • A Week With: 2023 Genesis Electrified G80 AWD
    • A Week With: 2023 Land Rover Defender 110 V-8
    • First Drive: 2023 Honda Pilot TrailSport
    • A Week With: 2023 Jaguar F-Type R Coupe
    • A Week With: 2023 GMC Yukon Denali Ultimate
    • A Week With: 2023 Genesis GV60 Performance
    • A Week With: 2023 Chevrolet Suburban Z71
    • A Week With: 2023 Lexus UX 250h F Sport
    Editor’s Choice
      Guides
      Car Warranty
      • Endurance Warranty Reviews
      • BMW Extended Warranty
      • Extended Warranty For Cars Over 100k Miles
      • Extended Car Warranty Cost
      • Subaru Extended Warranty
      • CarShield Reviews
      • CarShield Cost
      • Aftermarket Car Warranty
      • CARCHEX Warranty Reviews
      • Reputable Extended Car Warranty Companies
      • Used Car Warranty Companies
      • Best Car Warranty
      • Is CarShield A Scam?
      • Mercedes Extended Warranty
      • CarShield Plans
      Insurance
      • How To Identify A Car Insurance Company
      • Geico Mechanical Breakdown Insurance
      • How Far Back Does A Car Insurance Company Look
      • Mechanical Breakdown Insurance For Used Cars
      • State Farm Mechanical Breakdown Insurance
      • Mechanical Breakdown Insurance From Progressive
      • Dollar A Day Insurance
      • Auto Insurance For SSI Recipients
      • Car Insurance Rates After A Suspended License
      • Auto Insurance For Salvage Vehicles
      • Average Cost of Dodge Ram 1500 Car Insurance
      • Car Insurance Florida
      • Full Coverage Auto Insurance
      • GrubHub Insurance
      • Amazon Delivery Auto Insurance
      Shipping
      • Car Shipping Companies
      • uShip Reviews
      • Auto Shipping From California To Hawaii
      • Montway Auto Transport Reviews
      • Cheap Car Shipping
      • Easy Auto Ship Reviews
      • Auto Shipping Miami
      • Auto Shipping To Alaska
      • Car Shipping Cost
      • Auto Shipping Hawaii
      • Auto Shipping Puerto Rico
      • Sherpa Auto Transport Reviews
      • Auto Shipping Atlanta
      • Auto Shipping Boston
      • Auto Shipping. Chicago
      About
      • About Us
      • Contact Us
      • Terms of Use
      • Privacy Policy
      • Affiliate Disclosure
      • Sitemap
      TheDetroitBureau.com

      More than just “another” place to find news, reviews, spy shots, commentary, features, and guides about the auto industry. TheDetroitBureau doesn’t stop with the press releases or confuse a few lines of opinion with insightful, in-depth reporting.

      Contact Us

      Like what you see? Have some ideas for making The Detroit Bureau.com even better? Let us know, we’d love to hear your voice.

        Media
        Listen Now
        • Headlight News: All Episodes
        More from TheDetroitBureau
        • Guides
        • Latest News
        • Auto Reviews
        • Podcasts
        Headlight News

        TheDetroitBureau.com’s Headlight News offers a look at the past week’s top automotive news stories, as well as what’s coming up in the week ahead. Check out the week’s top story and our latest review…along with a dive into the past with this week in automotive history.

        home > news > Automakers > Could Alfa Romeo Fall Victim to Fiat Chrysler/PSA Merger?

        Could Alfa Romeo Fall Victim to Fiat Chrysler/PSA Merger?

        Manley has “not been happy with the performance” of the Italian brand.

        Paul A. Eisenstein
        Paul A. Eisenstein , Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
        Oct. 31, 2019
        Fiat Chrysler is scaling back its plans for Alfa Romeo due to poor sales results. The move has some wondering about its fate in North America.

        Little more than a year ago, the Alfa Romeo brand seemed poised to become one of the stars in the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles portfolio. At a well-attended event in Milan in June 2018, former FCA Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne positioned the Italian marque as one of four brands that would dominate the company’s future sales, along with Jeep, Ram and Maserati.

        But, just hours after Fiat Chrysler confirmed plans to merge with France’s PSA, the late Marchionne’s successor, Michael Manley, sounded a much more sour note, raising concerns about Alfa’s future, particularly in the U.S. market where it has struggled to gain traction.

        “I’ve not been happy with the performance of Alfa Romeo,” said Manley, who succeeded Marchionne in July 2018 after the former CEO’s unexpected death. “While I fundamentally believe in the brand, we must make sure any investments we make generate appropriate returns.”

        (Image of Alfa Romeo’s 600hp GTV Coupe Leaks Out)

        As part of the five-year plan announced in Milan last year, Alfa was set to see a significant expansion in its line-up which, at the time, consisted solely of the midsize Giulia sport sedan, the Stelvio SUV and, in some markets, the older Giulietta sedan. The expanded portfolio was to include a new sports car, among other things, and several SUVs, while there also were set to be two high-end halo cars:

        FCA Chief Exec Mike Manley said he still believed in the Alfa brand, but said scaling back the line-up would help improve its profitability.

        ·        An all-new Alfa Romeo 8C adopting a carbon fiber body and platform. It was slated to deliver more than 700 horsepower through a hybrid drivetrain pairing a mid-mounted twin-turbo gas engine and an electric motor driving the front axle. Expected 0 to 100 kmh time? Under 3 seconds; and

        ·        A new Alfa GTV reviving one of the brand’s legendary nameplates. The four-passenger model would make over 600 horsepower using an electrically boosted gas engine. Power would be delivered to all four wheels and the GTV will feature torque vectoring.

        But Manley, during his Thursday morning earnings teleconference, said that, “in the near term, the new portfolio for the brand is significantly scaled back with a corresponding reduction in capital spending.”

        Equally significant, Manley also stressed that Fiat Chrysler plans to “refocus the portfolio of actions for the brand to segments and geographies where we have successfully competed.”

        That could spell trouble for the brand’s future in the U.S., at least one veteran analyst, speaking on background, cautiously wondering if Alfa might vanish from the market – again. Along with a number of slow-selling European brands, the Italian marque left the States in the early 1990s. It tested the waters for a return in 2008 with the debut of the limited-run 8C Competizione supercar but didn’t make a serious comeback attempt until 2015 with the launch of the little 4C roadster.

        The Alfa Romeo Stelvio will remain as part of the now scaled-back vehicle portfolio.

        (Alfa Romeo Signals Plug-In Plans With Tonale Concept)

        That was followed by the Giulia and then the Stelvio, Alfa’s first SUV, and initially perked U.S. demand which grew from 12,031 in 2017 to 23,800 a year later. But demand has been falling off sharply in 2019, American dealers selling just 9,037 Alfas during the first half of the year, compared with 12,265 during the same period in 2018.

        “They have given it a good try,” said Carla Bailo, CEO of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “But they just can’t keep doing the same thing if they can’t return a profit.”

        The Giulietta will go away as part of the rationalized product line-up, Manley revealed Thursday. And, beyond the bigger Giulia and Stelvio, Alfa will now get only two more products, a compact SUV and an even smaller utility vehicle.

        “I believe these actions will allow the brand to return to profitability,” he said during his morning call. But he quickly added that, “While there are no product actions beyond what you see here, obviously I wouldn’t rule out that possibility in the future depending upon the performance.”

        FCA’s plans for Alfa Romeo in the near term.

        While none of the industry observers who spoke to TheDetroitBureau.com – mostly on background – saw the Alfa brand going away, CAR’s Bailo stressed that all bets are off when it comes to what products and brands will survive “after the merger with PSA.”

        She expects the combined company – which will see PSA CEO Carlos Tavares retain the chief executive role – to give a serious look at its entire portfolio. That could put virtually everything at risk, including the flagship Fiat and Chrysler brands that were left with relatively few products to market, anyway, under Marchionne’s five-year plan.

        (FCA Pledges $5.7B Investment in Italian Auto Plants)

        But Alfa will have to build up some momentum or it, too, could face a very uncertain future.

        How to Care for Your Car

        Cheap Car Warranty

        Editor's Choice

        Best Extended Car Warranty

        Editor's Choice
        Recently Published

        Tesla Owners Stung by Capitalism

        Today
        2024 Mercedes-AMG GLE 63 S Coupé front 3-4 REL

        Mercedes Updates GLE Models for 2024 Model Year

        Today
        Mazda CX-90 - front 3-4 with house Best

        First Look: Mazda’s Bigger, More Luxurious New CX-90

        Today

        2 responses to “Could Alfa Romeo Fall Victim to Fiat Chrysler/PSA Merger?”

        1. JAE says:
          October 31, 2019 at 4:41 pm

          Current build quality, reliability, but most important memories of past build quality and reliability have really sealed Alfa’s fate.

          Unfortunately most want the “hot chick” but expect practicality / reliability of a stereotypical grandmother.

          Reply
        2. Kenneth says:
          November 1, 2019 at 1:59 am

          Manley does not have Alfa Romeo at his heart. It is sadistic to allow a CEO to allow a brand with over 100years of history fall. Get your act together man!!!! and get after-sales service right, and ensure that quality is on par or higher, and provide a larger range, not reduce, and include those on a limited budget, and the young , cater for a wider market, and change the minds of motoring journalists who, on every occasion, diss the brand about quality, every – single- time- continue to knock the brand for a reputation of poor reliability and iffy quality, when Alfa Romeo sends a Giulia QF out to the press and a unit is sent out without software upgrades and the journos have a feast day dissing the brand as the dash lights up brighter and flicker some like an xmass tree on viagra, that, FCA, has a huge negative- ‘stay the F away’ from Alfa Romeo, impact on the minds of the public. That person/s should have been fired. I want to remind those making the decisions, it is not the Alfa Romeo brand to blame, it is the decisions a hand full of people who are to blame. The guilt lies with you- the decision-makers, low energy individuals at FCA. Get your act together and get the brand together, do what you are being paid to do. Satisfy and impress the public, journos and shareholders!!!! It’s so easy to kill the brand, dust your hands and walk away, that my friends, is a sign of immense weakness and disinterest, employ the right people who are motivated and energized to do the job at hand correctly, the first time, every time. Take a feather out the hat of what Audi, to name but just one brand, what they accomplished as an example, the brand went from ‘meagre’ some 20 years back, today, they are a leading marque, why? the decision was taken to embrace the brand and get the quality up on every scale against there opposition, right down to the smallest, yet very important , touch and sound of items like the electric window button, today, they are respected and achieved what they set out to do and continue to ride the wave of success that they set out to do. FCA, I’m afraid, has not put their heart fully into the Alfa Romeo marque and embrace it. That drive died when the late and great Mr Marchionne passed away. As an Alfisti I have supported the brand and Fiat since my first car in 1988, I am disgusted and deeply saddened to read this story today. Rid the company of the ‘do nothing’ and ‘low energy’ heads, not the brand. And reap the positive rewards. That’s my rant for 01 November 2019, Signing out. Kenneth Petzer from South Africa

          Reply

        Leave a Reply Cancel reply

        Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

        Share this article:
        © The Detroit Bureau 2023
        • Guides
        • Privacy Policy
        • Terms of Use
        • Affiliate Disclosure
        • Contact Us
        • Sitemap
        Follow Us: