REPORT: Alfa favors larger sedan as first salvo in new American push
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]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Kumar 4:11PM (8/04/2009)
You're going to become Julia Giulia? ;)
Would be an interesting proposition having the next 300 come to us with a little Alfa influence....could do wonders for the interior. Maybe a few more curves on the outside wouldn't hurt either...just keep the grill shape and general size and we're good.
Reply
Gavin S. 4:13PM (8/04/2009)
Looks like a grill from a 300C.
Reply
Alex 4:21PM (8/04/2009)
You are joking, right? That looks like the grill from the 300C because it *is* the grill from the 300C. Autoblog just photoshopped the Alfa Romeo logo onto it.
Gavin S. 4:41PM (8/04/2009)
Wow, spending 8 hours straight with my 3 year old son has made my brain not work so good. D'oh!
Evan 4:18PM (8/04/2009)
"Neither platform is exactly perfect – both are aging, and the competition in the segment is stiff"
In other words, it'll likely be a failure from the start. Why are they backing a product that they know can't compete?
Reply
inline6 4:46PM (8/04/2009)
Uh, this is called SPECULATION on Autoblog's part. Fiat doesn't *KNOW" it can't compete.
AB is talking out their backsides Re: C-Evo. The Giulia will be the 159 replacement, and it'll be on the same C-Evo platform as the 147-replacing Milano. And it'll be FWD.
The car that's supposed to move to the LX platform is the larger 166 replacement that Alfa put on hold a couple years ago while they were in search of a proper rear-drive platform. They have one now with Chrysler.
Also keep in mind that the 300 is in the midst of a serious updating program, as well. So I'm sure that whatever Alfa brings over will be up-to-date.
Alex 4:19PM (8/04/2009)
While I'm more interested in the Mito, if the rendering are to be believed the car is attractive:
http://blog.leasetrader.com/archive/2009/04/20/Alfa-Romeo-Giulia.aspx
Reply
RowFive 5:12PM (8/04/2009)
I hope it's just distorted perspective in the rendering, because it looks like there's about four feet of car ahead of the front wheels. That's for certain not on a RWD platform. The Giulia must be destined for front-drive after all, as Inline6 mentioned. Too bad.
Art 4:24PM (8/04/2009)
please let the only thing it has in common with the 300 be the fact that both are cars
Reply
Aloysius Vampa 4:25PM (8/04/2009)
I don't know. Both being RWD would help, too.
Jruhi4 4:30PM (8/04/2009)
Sorry, Dan, but you're mistaken about the Fiat/Lancia/Alfa Romeo C-Evo platform. It's FRONT-wheel-drive, NOT RWD.
The Giulia is a larger-than-Milano derivative of the C-Evo FWD platform that will replace the Alfa Romeo 159. In fact, some accounts say it's enlarged enough from C-Evo that it deserves a separate D-Evo moniker.
The Alfa Romeo-ized Chrysler 300 would slot ABOVE the Giulia, and would replace the discontinued-in-2007 Alfa Romeo 166.
Reply
styleguy 4:50PM (8/04/2009)
I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed the error about the C-EVO.
And I really don't see why they need to replace the 159. I got back from Italy a month ago and the new ones are gorgeous! It needs nothing done.
Bruno Kussler 5:13PM (8/04/2009)
This is just my guess but I hope that Alfa would use the Chrysler 200C show car as base to the new Giulia. The old Giulia has very small and nimble sedan and sports coupe, in fact the original Giulia was smaller than the actual Honda Civic and very similar in size to the 94 civic coupe. There's no sense in making a bloated heavy weight LX based sedan to replace the actual 159, but to replace the 166 would make a lot more sense.
Quuppa 4:33PM (8/04/2009)
and its brand new not old ... like in the article says...
Reply
Olivier Parent 4:34PM (8/04/2009)
RWD would be great, currently the FWD alfa's have difficulty in competing with BMW as a driver's car.
Reply
mutantchimp 5:28PM (8/04/2009)
alfas are sexy and Italian.. as long as the don't fall apart in the first 20,000 miles they could sell last generations models here with no problem
Reply
boxer3main 5:35PM (8/04/2009)
just put the boxer back in, stretch the body from old design. subaru did. It does not succeed in my world, but hey, its one big happy criminally international ripoff of grandads "old" and "aging" true strength: the automobile as we know it. they won't be anything special, just like every car. Everything sucks.
Reply
Who 'Dis? Who 'Dat? 5:45PM (8/04/2009)
As expressed by many of my fellow AutoBloggers, there are naturally pro's and con's to the idea of Fiat utilizing Chysler's architecture (and vice versa) to build it's next generation Alfa Romeo Giulia sedan.
But once again I have to applaud the fact that Fiat and Chrysler are working so closely to produce products that will hopefully make them both successful. Both companies have done more together in the few months of their alliance than DaimlerChrysler ever did in nearly a decade of their so-called "merger of equals."
Reply
naturalyshocked 6:35PM (9/10/2009)
@Who Dis? Who Dat?
merger of equals?
daimler was/is still is the bigger than chrysler.
daimler is more than car, truck and busses.
daimler also has fingers in trains, aerospace, space and i don't know what more.
but daimler is realy HUGE.
Frank 6:43PM (8/04/2009)
Who 'Dis? Who 'Dat?,
+1 about FIAT vs Daimler working with Chrysler.
Reply