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Sergio Marchionne On Alfa Romeo’s Revival: “We’re In Nursery School”

When it comes to overpromising in the automotive world, Sergio Marchionne and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles are the biggest offenders that come to mind. And no other FCA-owned automaker offends more than Alfa Romeo in this department.
Alfa Romeo product plan from 2014 91 photos
Photo: Alfa Romoe
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The revival of the brand was announced with great pomp and circumstance, and was made possible by the Giorgio platform developed with the help of Ferrari. The Giulia sedan is the car that headed the upturn. It’s a great machine in both regular and Quadrifoglio forms, but it must be highlighted it took Alfa Romeo nearly a year since the world premiere to roll out the Giulia.

Then came the Stelvio crossover utility vehicle, which debuted at the 2016 Los Angeles Auto Show and is a proper driver’s car. Cutting straight to the chase, Alfa Romeo has been reinventing itself for the past three years or so. So what does Sergio Marchionne have to say about Alfa Romeo’s current state of affairs? Well, you already know from the headline, isn’t it?

Speaking to Wheels Mag on the sidelines of the 2018 Detroit Auto Show, the head honcho of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles declared: “We’re in nursery school. I think we just started.” Dearest Sergio, everybody knows that Alfa Romeo overpromised and failed to deliver on the original version of the product plan.

For the sake of factuality, the $7 billion future product offensive announced in May 2014 made it clear that all the new models would be launched by 2018. Care to guess how’s that going? Here’s another excerpt from Wheels Mag's report: “It’s going to take until 2022 to see the full effect. Not developing Alfa, not developing Maserati would be economically suicidal for FCA.”

Close but no cigar, Sergio. Speaking of economic suicide, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is looking into greater group synergies. To this effect, the Giorgio platform could be borrowed by the likes of Dodge and Jeep, and even Maserati’s platform could prove useful to the American part of FCA.

If there's anything we can learn from the Giorgio project and Alfa Romeo's revival, that can be summed up as "expect to be disappointed. Again."
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About the author: Mircea Panait
Mircea Panait profile photo

After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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