What is Alfa's future in the U.S. looking like?

This cross over is supposed to be next starting at $35K. But who knows? Seems like FCA is putting more effort in Maserati at the moment. The Fiat brand will probably go all electric.
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Right now it’s a reevaluation process for both Alfa and Maserati as a whole, not just the US. Whatever direction they take, to succeed in North America it should include a changeover of its dealer network and staffing away from CDJR.

 

Alfa sales are actually up in america which happens go be Alfas most important market. Can you believe sales were up during a pandemic filled year?

Alfa also just got a new CEO, previous boss at Peugeot who was the most performing anc prized manager that Tavares had. The intention is there to lift Alfa to new heights and with the scale now that stellantis has, the future looks better.

Maserati will be relaunching this year with MC20 and Grecale SUV, more macan than cayenne. Stellantis in the short term has no choice but to invest and energize both Alfa and Maserati as they represent the only true premium brands in the group.

Remember that Alfa and Maserati have a robust dealer body in the Americas...something that isnt negligible

 

Maserati and Alfa’s dealer network IS the problem in North America. The majority are mass market Chrysler dealers that don’t understand the product nor its customers.

 

Dealers can be improved, the point is that having an existing dealer network makes all the difference once the product gets the funding it needs...the supply chain will enable alfa to sell more.

 

Study your history it keeps repeating itself. Kind of like Socialism on paper it works, but in the real world it fails repeatedly. This isn’t the 1st time Maserati and Alfa tried to use the Chrysler network to increase sales in North America.

Look back to the late 80s early 90s, separately both Maserati and Alfa sold their products through the Chrysler Network. The end result was that both withdrew from North American market. Remember Chrysler’s distribution of Renault cars in the US? Other joint ventures with FIAT, Mitsubishi, Hyundai all ended in Failure, then there was Lamborghini. Of course we can’t forget that Daimler was willing to take a 26 BILLION dollar loss to separate themselves from Chrysler.

the one thing that Daimler never did was merge the Mercedes and Chrysler networks, and Mercedes has thrived by concentrating on high quality dealers and not integrating Chrysler staff into Mercedes. The mistake Marchionne made in 2015 when he installed Reid Bigland as the head of Maserati and the power base of the company shifted from Modena to Auburn Hills. Before that Maserati was operating at a 13+% profit margin higher than Mercedes, BMW etc. only trailing Ferrari and Porsche and that was before they got an SUV. In under 24 months margins plunged to under 3% as more and more CDJR dealers were given Maserati and Alfa points. Exactly what transpired in the late 1980s. Maserati and Alfa need to move out of Auburn Hills, transfer any that ever had an @chrysler.com email address. Then begin a purge of the dealers that also have Chrysler franchise and work a “Sales System “ across their Dealer Group.

 

I am really hoping they make it because I love my Guilia. But I leased it for two years last June instead of buying it in case they went belly up. Great car. My dealer also handles Lamborghini, Maserati and Bentley out of the same facility so the service should be fine.

 

Really? Is Alfa running a lot of promo?
On the other hand, every car is selling like hot cakes during covid. At least it's good to see that even Alfas are selling.

 

Not sure if you are lumping Lamborghini in with the failures, but Chrysler's stewardship of Lamborghini was very successful. Lamborghini sold in excess of 2,000 cars in their 8 years of ownership (which was close to the total production from 1963-1986) plus they developed with iconic Diablo.

 

Your post is mostly great but also delusional at the end.
I would not describe the Alfa and Maserati service experience as anywhere near great or even good, or even better than tolerable(Certain stores excepted.) If they want to sell premium brands they need premium experience. Toyota proved that Oh 3 decades ago with lexus.

I will say that in its size range the Gulia is simply the best new car you can buy,

 

really, Bob Lutz may beg to differ with you.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a28370279/chrysler-wanted-a-lamborghini-badged-k-car/

 

Lamborghini very much benefitted from the Chrysler ownership....that is the important point as exotic car fans here.

 

Alfa's problem is that it was seen as a solution for the "Fiat problem" in America. That is, all these Fiat studios FCA forced dealers to be built were supposed to be "saved" by Alfa being sold in them. So Alfa was a force fit to shore up Fiat. Alfa should have been sold in mainstream Chrysler dealerships as the Italian version of BMW.

Fiat today is basically a dead brand in the US. IMO it will come back as all electric in the USA but that will take time. Alfa doesn't have a strong enough line to sell in the competitive SUV market and Sedan sales everywhere are way down. Go to to any company selling SUV's and Cross overs today and you will find a wide variety of types, sizes, features, etc to choose from.

You have to really, really, really want the Alfa to select it over its competitors and live with few and far between dealerships to service it. Difficult to find a sizeable market that way.

 

Only 1.6%. Most of this is due to discounting and great leasing deals.
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The Alfa/Fiat dealer near me has basically turned into a used car dealer. I think their volumes on Alfas and Fiats were never high enough to sustain the dealer. The problem with this is that it feels like a used car dealer. I went in there to look at a Quadrifoglio and the experience was awful. They gave me a hard time about test driving it and then poured on the high pressure sales tactics. I felt like I needed a shower after leaving. Course if the Quadrifolio had come in a manual I probably still would have bought it from them, but the automatic ruined the car for me. I would still have been very wary about having to deal with them for service though.

 

Yes and the brilliant move to make all Ferrari dealers go exclusively Ferrari in the bigger markets shut down almost all the half way decent Alfa and Maserati dealers, with a few exceptions.

 

‘that’s effectively what they did and that was the problem. They awarded both Alfa and Maserati to Chrysler dealers, it didn’t matter if they were under the same roof or in a separate facility, they are Mass Market Selling System Dealers, they couldn’t sell the cars and customers didn’t trust them.

Maserati and Alfa should have stayed with the high quality Ferrari dealers, giving them the opportunity to open a satellite Maserati/Alfa points in market areas that don’t have Ferrari points. Instead you got 3 Chrysler dealers opening dealerships in a market area that can only support 1.