Alfa Romeo's Bet On The SUV Segment Pays Off Big In 2017

The BS of the post is epic. A year ago the brand was selling its Fiero to a few dozen people. This year dozens more are buying Giulias. Thus on a *percentage* basis, Alfa Romeo is killing it. The FACTS are different. The sales volume of the Giulia is not only terrible, but embarrassingly so. The Stelvios are arriving on the lot, but are not flying out the doors. For all we know, the Stelvio could become another Levante i.e.a sales failure.

I loved the assertion that Alfas have "solid engineering". That was a knee slapper.

Poor, sad troll who cares too much about me when you mean nothing to me. Admit your addiction to me. It's the first step in your recovery. #ByeFelicia

The simple fact that folks are coming in and ordering the cars and SUVs in bright look at me colours shows you there is a real passion for the brand and likely from a younger customer demographic that is willing to pay for what is likely a highly optioned special order car. Most brands would kill for that. Success will continue come as long as they are true to the high-performance nature of this iconic Italian brand.

Nevertheless, Alfa Romeo's volume is abysmal.

Depends on the yardstick. 10% of BMW's volume in 1 year. 3X Aston Martin's volume. Likely a higher unit sale price than a lot of the other vendors. As it has been said, it is not where you start, it's where you finish.

The sad thing is that you believe what you say. You're thankfully not in business, I hope. If the yardstick is total illogical ignorance of the market, then you're right. The Giulia's sales volume is epic bad and saying that a supposedly exciting enthralling new car that supposedly stirs the blood sells only 1/10 the volume of BMW is a brilliant success is nonsensical. Then you're comparing Aston Martin's volume to a garden-variety, mainstream brand like Alfa Romeo??? Really??? Alfas are steeply discounted so they DON'T have a higher unit price than BMW. But even if they had a higher unit price, each Alfa would have to cost exponentially more just to achieve parity with BMW or Mercedes for profit per car.

Think you really need to do some homework. Alfa Romeo’s goal has never been to challenge BMW, MB Audi etc. in volume, it has always been to offer a credible alternative to those brands with the goal of a total worldwide volume of approximately 400,000 units per year once the entire lineup of models is complete. Alfa has 6 more models that have yet to be introduced. Maserati is setup in a similar structure with a goal of 70 - 75,000 units per year. Audi, BMW, MB all sell well in excess of 1 million units per year. All Alfa needs to do is conquest 1 in every 10 to 20 units sold of the german brands to achieve its goal.

As far as genesis is concerned the Koreans have excellent build quality, and Manfred is a good man that knows his stuff, he will position the brand to maximize its potential. Its primary conquest brands are Lexus, Infiniti and secondary the Germans.

@Foncool I think YOU need to clue in.The goal of Alfa WAS to grab volume and lots of it. When FCA was scouring for new Maserati and Alfa Romeo dealers, their business proposal clearly showed Alfa Romeo targeting the volume of the lower half of Mercedes/BMW/Audi with Maserati easily dominating the upper end. Let's just say that the drugs they were on must have been amazing.

What we have is a difference in the understanding and usage of the term volume. Alfa Romeo's world wide sales was just under 100,000, the goal of a 4X increase to 400,000 units not a 20X increase to compete in terms of pure volume with the Germans. The volume increase for Alfa was a target conquest at the lower end of the German range. Maserati's world wide sales were under 7,000 units per year, the goal was a 10x increase. That increased volume coming from conquest of the upper end German brands through an expanded model lineup.

To achieve those volume goals the dealer network needed to increase. Unfortunately Maserati North America consisting of primarily transferred Ferrari North America employees and its dealer network obviously would not be able to handle that type of increase in volume.

So Chrysler hatched man Pete Grady is tasked to take over MNA and rapidly expand the dealer network and basically order more cars. Naturally Grady and his Chrysler cohorts start pitching the Chrysler dealer network to become Maserati dealers. Never mind that most had no idea what a Maserati was or the level of its customers and potential customers. To them luxury was a PT Cruiser with power windows.

Obviously chasing sometime of bonus for new dealerships opened during the 2014 calendar year. Maserati dealer points go from around 30-35 (mostly dueled with Ferrari), to over 100 points. Dealerships were encouraged to open before the end of 2014 even though they wouldn't be receiving any cars until at least mid January of 2015.

Grady unceremoniously retired at the end of 2014. Maserati and Alfa are now being sold by sub-par Chrysler dealers that have little understanding of the product or its customers.

@MD Horses for courses. They are just starting. They are also not giving them away in Canada. Big money. Over $100k for QF's. As well no new / reborn brand is going to shoot the lights out in year one. Having said that 2018-2020 would need to have sales ramp up substantially to be part of any good 5-year business plan. Don't be so negative just yet. You and the rest of us dislike the same old same old from BMW and others who seem to always shoot themselves in the foot with boring and or odd designs. Here is a brand doing it differently. Stay the course. Who knows what might happen.

Why would anyone want an Alfa Romeo dealer? Even with cash on the hood, the 2017s gather dust on the lot.

To make it a success Alfa had better at the minimum double sales from 2017. Even that still puts it way down on the totum pole. I have heard that the original reliability problems are being resolved and later cars are not having the issues that the earlier cars did. I do agree that if Alfa wants to maintain and grow it had better figure out dealership service. There is some interest in the cars and I am starting to see some Giulia's in greater numbers where I live. But again I reiterate that the next 2 years will really be critical for the brand. To expect it to sell like gang busters out of the gate in an already overcrowded field is frankly unrealistic. Also I think they would have been more successful in volume had the cars started in the mid 30's. Obviously I am routing for them as they do offer a clear alternative to the Germans. Assuming they can dramatically increase sales the they need to improve their interiors.
But taking the Suv route and potentially coming out with both a larger and smaller Suv thane the Stelvio is the right move. I just hope they do significantly better than Fiat.