Fiat Master Plan Hinges On Jeep And Alfa Romeo To Become Major Brands

Marchionne is a moron. The fact that the 4C made it to production to relaunch Alfa is DUMB. FCA should have killed Dodge, made Chrysler the base brand, Alfa Romeo the near-premium brand based on Chryslers, and Maserati as their BMW competitor. Alfa Romeo is 100% vapor.

What I like about you Matt is you don't hold back on your opinions-bravo! I can't really agree with you on this but I respect your opinions. Making Alfa's based on Chrysler's would completely dilute the brand. That in fact has been Fiats problem with Alfa all along. Essentially making them variations of FWD Fiats. The premium platform that spawned the Brera and 159 was to originally be shared with Saab. It was a GM based platform inherited by Fiat when it had merged with GM all those years ago. Further Maserati is competing with BMW now with the Gibli and Quattroporte. Another point-How has Chrysler screwed up when they've had consistent month over month improvement in sales for the last 3 yrs.

silly Fiat... I have zero respect for the Fiats or Masers as their build quality is sorely lacking despite their loud exhausts (on the ones remotely intriguing). People thought the Fiat 500 would hurt the MINI brand, hardly a dent... The Ghibli and Quattroporte were both disappointing when I saw and felt them in person as well (granted I haven't driven either.) I will never forget sitting in a prev. gen Quattroporte and noticing the buttons that were covered in "chrome" were peeling off on a new Maser... bad quality! I do however quite like the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Chrysler 300s that I have recently driven... Good luck in any case Fiat, competition is good for the market!

Well-I've owned a Mini Cooper S(2006) and now own a Fiat 500 Abarth. I owned the Mini for 6 yrs. and the Abarth now for a year. Therefore I can tell you that the Abarth has been perfectly reliable for the last yr. Interior quality is on par with my old Mini. The newer Mini has better interior quality but then it also costs significantly more money.
Never the less the interior quality has been very good on my Abarth. Nothing is loose, nothing has fallen off, the engine (while loud) is smooth, the std outs are the comfortable leather seats and leather sport steering wheel. The A/C in the Fiat works miles better than the old Mini. I can't speak about the Quattroporte and the Ghibli but the 500 has turned out to be a decent car.

time will tell... Be careful out there, those Fiat's crash test ratings were abismal that I read about...