Re: how many sports cars could Alfa sell in the U.S.?

["Joseph Kanellopoulos" <kanellj@domain.elided>]

I am not sure if I am mistaken here, but I never really saw much of a
marketing push by Alfa in the US except in the late 80s around the same time
they tried to make a comeback to Indy racing.

Sure there was some advertising in car mags, but how many of the people that
buy cars, ever read cars magazines (does anyone have car mag sales figures?).

Unless you get your face on TV (I totally agree with the Catherine Zeta Jones
thing, though it missed its window, because the movie is now old and Zeta
(wasnt there some designhouse alfa creation... hey... a Zeta Alfa with Zeta
Jones as the spokeswoman and GM footing the bill... err...) is not the "hot
commodity" she was then) you are not really going to get anywhere.

TV takes big money, (as most presidential candidates will tell you) and I am
not sure that mother FIAT has the pockets for that, but I believe that if the
financial fortunes of Grouppo FIAT are to be reversed at some point the US
market will be a major factor in that (let's face it people buy cars in the US
a lot and often). Alfa could be the entry point for FIAT with Lancia following
and then FIAT finally coming in, if FIAT wants to survive as a car maker, I do
not think they can ignore the US car market any longer.  Maybe the Top down
approach with the expansion of the Ferrari/Maserati market, into a broader
base with Alfa and then maybe Lancia would be a logical step.

I always felt the smartest thing BMW did was stick the Z in the bond films and
then stick other BMWs in there in the sequels.... at least that is my
feeling.

Alfas are all over the place in the movies but they somehow manage to blend
in, (last time I remember a significant Alfa in  movie was in the Graduate -
and the poor thing runs out of gas, and now even that has been canibalized as
an idea by the new Jetta VR-6 ads) We need an Alfa spokescar, that raises the
image. Something TV/movie related and that will not come in cheap.

Maybe you guys over here can brainstorm something and send it to Alfa in
Italy.

Just a lot silly late night thoughts.

As a final side bar, what is the percentage of total vehicle sales that are
automobiles? I mean as far as I know Alfa does not have Trucks, SUVs, or
Mini-Vans (neither does LANCIA and does FIAT offer anything like that other
than Mini-Vans? -look at Huyndai a mini van already and I would not be
surprised if they beef up one of their domestic pickups and bring it here - or
look how the lack of a full size truck has effected Nissan vs. Toyota) so what
part of the pie would they be looking at even with a full complement of car
models?

Joseph
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