According to the latest reports, Fiat is going to merge the Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Abarth brands under one sport sub brand. Abarth and Maserati CEO Harald Wester has been appointed by Fiat as CEO of Alfa Romeo and will now head the three brands. Wester’s new role will be to identify synergies between the three brands.
Currently his greatest challenge is going to be to fix Alfa Romeo. Fiat is currently undergoing a strategic review of Alfa Romeo. There are two options that Fiat could take, one is to freeze all development of new models and just focus on selling the MiTo and upcoming Giulietta; the other option is to share platforms with Chrysler for the 159 and 166 replacements.
At the Detroit motor show, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne told Autocar that several options were still available for Alfa.
“Alfa has been underperforming for a long time,” he said. “It has been the most difficult part of Fiat’s recovery, even though on paper it looks so attractive. The marque isn’t for sale, or anything like that.
“It’s our problem. But we do have to rethink our objectives and be realistic with ourselves before we do anything else.
“First, I want to see how well we do launching the Giulietta. From the technical point of view it’s a huge step forward, but I want to see how it fares. And I want to see how we can take advantage of that through the company.”
Full Story: Autocar
