Did Alfa Romeo Delay The Giulia US Debut Because It FAILED Crash Testing?

If it did it will put a very dark cloud over plans to rebuild brand. The increasingly high risk competitive nature of the industry seems to be causing companies to take shortcuts to market that are causing real problems. Substantial number of recalls, GM scandal, VW scandal, and airbag scandal are but a few examples.

The relaunching of Alfa has been stupendously mishandled. The 4C would have been brilliant for $35K not $75K. Sending the Miata clone to Fiat took away an Alfa that would have rekindled find memories.

I predict that when the Giulia finally gets here no one will care. They introduced it WAY TOO EARLY. More than a year will go by from launch to being in dealers. That's dumb.

FCA should have made Alfa Romeo a near-premium brand and used the Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep models based on Alfa Romeo components for new Alfas.

Has anyone noticed that Sergio was firing up Maserati and then forgot he was doing that so he could fire up Alfa Romeo? Now Maserati is drifting aimlessly and Alfa is delayed and delayed.

Alfa says this is untrue.

Alfa can say anything it wants. I tend to believe the suppliers. The cars development time was very very rushed. The reason for this was that the Giulia was originally going to based on a shared platform with the Chrysler 200 but was going to only come in AWD and much sportier settings. Then Sergio had this epiphany that NO Alfa now had to be RWD. However it had to make a certain delivery date. So Sergio assembled the 10 special engineers and create this Skunkworks to rush development of the Giulia's platform for a 2016/2017 launch. I agree that Alfa should have been RWD. However that decision should have been made 4 to 5 years ago instead of this last minute change by Sergio. Now they have rehired an engineer that had originally been with FCA and then went to VAG to come in and fix the car so it can meet crash standards for the US. My concern is the weight it will add affecting performance, handling, and braking. If the car comes in heavier than a 3 series by a significant margin then it loses any advantage it had over the M3/M4 in horsepower.
That means heavier suspension and brake components, poorer fuel economy etc. That could require re jigging the gear ratio's to get some of those lost MPG's. That will cause performance to deteriorate etc. That would be a big shame. Well we will have to wait and see. The Fiat 124 spider is not such a big deal. Even though it is now changed from an Alfa Spider I'm certain they did not sacrifice the suspension settings. further the original Miata Alfa spider was not going to look at all like the Duettotanta show car of a couple of years ago. That car is still a knockout. I hope when they do a Spider off the Giulia platform it will at least approach that show car in looks. Right now the only model that is really selling in the US Fiat stable is the 500X. It is actually a decent car with decent looks. Fiat should also offer larger platform coming out to replace the Jeep Compass. That should replace the horrible 500L that is made in the old Yugo factory. Finally the little 500 needs to grow in length and offer a 4dr hatch. If Fiat does that it will have a more solid line up with products that are appealing to US buyers. The 500X clearly shows they can make an appealing product to US tastes. They just need to up the model count now.

I find it perplexing that Sergio hasn't killed brands instead of creating new ones (Ram/SRT) Dodge should have been pickups, Chrysler the mainstream brand, Fiat the boutique brand, Jeep the 4x4/crossover brand, Maserati. Lancia should have been axed with Alfa Romeo on hiatus until financials improved.

They also should have brokered a deal with Hyundai or Mazda for platform sharing by now.

SERGIO is perplexing! Everything he touches turns to crap. Crazy plans that have unrealistic time goals waste energy and focus, only to be replaced by another set of unrealistic ideas and plans. Someday soon there will be some great business school cases written about the mess he made of FCA.

Its too bad that all the stereotypes of poor quality of Italian autos are being brought to life here. Combine that with the other stereotypes of poor quality of Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep products that also continues to play out on a daily basis, makes this automaker conglomerate more or less doomed for the long term.

Sadly, its only a matter of time before FCA goes the way of SAAB, Pontiac, Plymouth, Saturn, etc.

Here's for a crazy idea - maybe Ilon Musk of Tesla should purchase the whole pile to get some much needed world-wide scale and some automaking expertise.

In a crazy way, Telsa's needs and FCA's needs sort of complement each other.

Musk and his team could quickly cancel PCA's crummiest products and gut the Dodge/SRT/Chrysler lineup in the US to cut costs and allow the Jeep brand to kick off even more cash, which can then be used to fund his EV endeavors.

He'll get some (a few?) experienced auto execs as part of the deal who could help him scale up Tesla.

Tesla would basically be like a big tick, sucking the blood and life out of PCA to enable Tesla to survive, restructure and maybe even prosper.

Musk is a big picture, idea and start up guy. He would be bored to death turning around a mess like FCA. His skill set doesn't lend itself to what FCA needs which is more of an Alan Mulanny with a real car guy by his side.

It's not a stereotype if it's true.

The fact is that the Giulia was a rushed job. This car needed 3 to 4 years development time to make sure it was right. However FCA is at the mercy of Marchionne's changing his mind at the last minute. I have come to the conclusion that pooring billions into development and then change your mind when sales are not going as well as should be(IE-Dart, 200)is not the way to properly run a car company. Further FCA needed 5 billion to develop the new Alfa range and now everything gets scaled back because of China. If there was a back seat room issue with the 200 why not develop a longer wheelbase version and call it the 200 SEL. Perhaps they should work to get some weight out of the Dodge Dart so it will perform and handle better. Oil is down now. What if Opec finally decides to cut back production and Oil goes back up? I don't know. It is probably right that the way of the 4dr passenger sedan will eventually go by the way side. I find it amazing that Marchionne is willing waste money on development and then cancel models so quickly.