Suppositions on Alfas return

[adoherty@domain.elided (Adam Doherty)]

With all the speculation/informed surmising on how would/if GM would 
reintroduce ALfa to the US, I still have a few questions: 

1: I don't understand how it is profitable/makes sense for them to sell 
Alfas in Australia, Japan, Britain, SOuth America for the following reasons
	A: They are just as far if not farther than the US, plus it has 
	to cost more to ship to these areas b/c of the lesser gross volumes 
	shipped. Also, in many cases the dealer networks/spatial problems are the 
	same as in the US.

	B: You have to re-engineer a car and produce duplicate/mirror 
	image of whole systems to sell cars in Britain.

2: How can a company like Daewoo etc come in like a la-kazaam and still 
be around--that is, solve many of the problems people here are noting 
(dealer network, image probs (Korean car????), warranty etc; but a larger 
corporate group such as Fiat of GM is a non-starter.

3: If sales volume is going to be too small for GM (if someone wants to 
discuss this off digest there are some other points concerning this I 
have), why do they mess with Saab? Moreover, why would, or better yet 
then, does it make most sense for brand viability etc to spin Alfa off as 
a stand-alone? That is, if it doesn't make sense as part of a large 
conglomerate (GM), and Fiat is a drain on it, is Alfa best sent on its 
own way? Please don't harken back to post WW2 govt nationalization of 
Alfa--that isn't analogous here.

As you can tell, I'm not in the auto nor marketing businesses, I only 
drive them....

Adam

-- 
Adam S. Doherty
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
University of Pennsylvania-School of Medicine
360 CRB
Curie Blvd
Philadelphia, PA 19104   USA

Phone: 215-898-7806
Fax: 215-898-8780
Email: adoherty@domain.elided
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided