how many sports cars could Alfa sell in the US?

["Watry, Andrew (LNG-MBC)" <Andrew.Watry@domain.elided>]

I was just walking around the Levi's Plaza/Embarcadero area of San
Francisco, full of rich young professionals, and my god there are a ton of
spanking new Porsches everywhere, not to mention a zillion Audis, BMWs, and
Mercedes.  Do I sense a pattern?  Only one Alfa visible, a very nice silver
Alfetta GT (25 years old now; yikes) still with its original blue Calif
plates.

The point of this, I guess, is that there's sure as heck a market for fancy
sports cars at almost any price in places like SF, Silicon Valley, LA, San
Diego, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, elsewhere, if the cars and dealers are
prepared for the real world of US sales and service.  Sports sedans are
great (you don't have to convince me), but with the possible exception of
the 164 (and probably its absolute sales figures are pretty low), Alfa could
never get it together in the US with a four-door.  They always sold way more
Spiders than anything else by far, right?

Just an idle thought on a slow Friday, that Alfa, or anybody else, ought to
be able to make a killing on sports cars in the US if they do their
homework, build the right cars, and get the dealer network together.  I
realize that's not a small order, but the aforementioned companies have all
done it, it seems.

Andrew Watry
Berlina Register
67 Super (sport sedan)
73 Berlina (sport sedan)
74 GTV (sports car)
78 Spider (paperweight at the moment) 
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