Re: alfa-digest V8 #299

[L O <alfetta82@domain.elided>]

The rumors (as we all could imagine) are arriving.
About the actual Fiat way, I was very hard in the past
as you all remember, especially about how Fiat "works"
about the past Alfa Romeo and Alfisti worldwide. They
have not yet understood the Alfisti are a true people,
and a fidelity people, but it's also a people to
satisfy with the products they ask and wait for.

I know I'll not enter in Fiat family after these
discussions, because the criticism isn't tolerated in
Fiat (the same "Valletta way": all in Fiat is the best
- sic! -) but I surely can affirm, without reclyning
my head, actual policy was and is (the future? boh!) a
disaster. Too conviction (without bases), too power
(real or false, surely Fiat has a lot of power in
Italy), too political disinterest until Fiat decide to
resign some employees (and so the political train
start crying, without doing truly anything): a product
is the result of the factory's feeling as from the
banana's tree come the banana fruit. 

Actually it's easy to be critic against Fiat, simply
because Fiat did great errors. The new Punto and Stilo
are too modern, perhaps, and the people continue
preferring the Golf. If they had eyes to see with self
criticism they could think also to the Multipla
affair: the car was shown some months before being
sold, and then, when available, had all without
success. About Multipla I saw the same "gingles" as it
was for the Arna in the '80s and for the Fiat Duna.
just now you can see some (few, not many) Multiplas
running on the italian roads.

So, the centre of the range of Fiat is simply fragile,
and customers don't like it. The Seicento has a quite
high price and offer few things, the only bestseller
in Fiat is the old Panda. The new Punto eat dust from
the old Punto, the Stilo is the right Bravo's heiress:
as the Bravo was slow in selling, the Stilo is the
same. With an exception: Bravo began good and then
went slow, Stilo is not beginning. People is
interested in buying Fiat only when there are the
discounts, and the actually the Fiat buyer is a "long
term" buyer: he buy a car and then wait 8 years before
changing it. Even if there is a fidelity, it's a long
term change fidelity.

The only actual Fiat's cars sold quite well are the
Alfa Romeo and the Lancia Lybra SW, the Thesis is a
big "?" actually.

An error is human, but to make many errors means there
are stupids managing the factory. They loose the
opportunity to make a great Alfa, based on the true
and old Alfa - Arese included -, they "fired" some
very good persons ("trombato", fucked) as Ghidella in
the '90s and Da Silva recently. There's a valzer which
seems to have no end. So everyone begin thinking there
are a lot of problems.. or not?

Some years ago the first citizen of Milan, Marco
Formentini, told "the safety for Alfa if to oblige
Fiat to sell Alfa to privates".

Actually I suppose it's really the best solution: we
can't think to the government as "re buyer" (even if
Fiat did never pay the Alfa), we can only think to see
Alfa in the hands of persons very capable, capable to
understand the Alfa's feeling and the Alfa people's
feelings. Fiat saw, since the '60s (Alfa president was
the great Luraghi), Alfa as a "poor province" to get.
Then they sucked from the "poor (poor???????)
province" and reduced it on the deadline. 
Outside Fiat's point of view, Alfa Romeo is a
prestigious brand, with some capable old style and
experienced employees in love with the brand. Then
there's a great market open as the US market. Then
there's the italian market, which loved and will love
the Alfa brand. And there's also the Alfa people who
need a sign, a clear sign, to see a newest Alfa based
on tradition (products + all the other stuffs). Let me
be clear: they sucked all from Alfa, as they did in
the past about Autobianchi and Innocenti. But
Innocenti and Autobianchi had not a so powerful and
lover people, as the Alfa brand has. All the "past
Alfa" lovers, even if helped, were, I suppose,
tolerated and followed without a true passion
(sometimes seen as too critic, and so not interesting
because impossible new owners).

Now they want dismantle Arese, the clearest sign of a
true and modern Alfa (since the past) because they
know they are actually insufficient if compared with
the old Alfa and they know they are not able to do the
right thing.

Ciao

L

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