Quotes Of The Day: Marchionne Mouths Off At Luxury Cobbler, Volkswagen
“What he invests on research and development in a year is not enough for us to even make part of a mudguard. He should stop bugging us,”
Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne responds to the unsolicited advice of Tod’s founder Diego Della Valle. It’s been a busy week for Sergio, whose homecoming in Italy was met with endless chirping from various corners of society.
As Bertel reported earlier, Marchionne met with none other than Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti to discuss Italy’s flagging car market. Marchionne also lashed out at Volkswagen, telling them
“I will not give Alfa to them, they should solve the problems they have elsewhere. They have a great problem with Seat.”
While Marchionne is known for his erm, candid comments, his frustration is palpable; ignorant outsiders – and ignorant insiders – pontificating about the auto industry is a tradition as old as the Model T. Whether it’s insisting that obscure, foreign-market variants would be the savior of an ailing company or preaching the merits of an iCar, so many have their own ideas of what would fix the car industry, but so few have any real understanding of what it takes the develop, design, engineer, manufacture, market and sell a car. Even with my relatively limited knowledge of these elements, it is easy to get frustrated when the ignorant spout off about their quick-fixes for the industry, if only because every glimpse at the inner workings of the auto industry are a humbling reminder that modern automobile production is nothing short of an industrial miracle.
More by Derek Kreindler
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I feel like spending that kind of dosh on designing a mud-gard is part of the problem. And then inevitably the bean-counters will come in and make 90% of that design investment irrelevant.
Marchionne really needs to get a life. And FIAT memories are long. Too long. I owned a FIAT 124 Spyder. The car was red. Lovely to look at and supple to drive, but the engine blew up while I was parked in my driveway (overhead cams down, pistons up). On the other hand I've owned a lot of VWs, and never once had a seat problem.
I must say that Sergio is firing on all cylinders lately. Pissing off the Canadians and now the home town crowd. I can't wait until he gets to the US FIAT distributors. That 6.6% is obviously really grinding his gears. If things don't improve soon he's going to start firing I think.
Tod aren't cobblers..they're 'Shoemakers' or more likely given these are purportedly luxury shoes 'Cordwainers'.