Forbidden Fruit

In The Land of the Free our choice of automobile brands is highly limited. Well, relatively. Dozens of European import brands have long fled our shores, curtailing our automotive freedom of expression. What happened to all those storied marques, such as Alfa-Romeo and Peugeot? And what’s keeping American pistonheads from once again enjoying the forbidden fruit of Europe’s exotic brands?

During the import boom in the fifties, Americans bought everything from Abarth to Zundapp. Sure, service at the gas station/cum Lloyd dealer was an iffy proposition. But eager Americans embraced the delicate and unadulterated European wares. Once in the hands of their hard-driving maintenance-shunning owners, most of them self-destructed exactly three days after their six month warranty expired.

The imports’ first Darwinian lesson: mechanical robustness and dealer support. VW and Mercedes passed with flying colors. Others, like Peugeot and Alfa, survived the great 1960 import implosion, if just barely.

Peugeot (known as the French Mercedes) built durable over-engineered rear wheel-drive (RWD) cars. The 404 was a regular winner of the grueling East-Africa Rally. Reliability, an unusually smooth engine, a velvety ride and comfy seats defined Peugeot.

Alfa built exquisitely beautiful coupes, roadsters and sedans that defined world standard for performance and style. The legendary twin-cam engine and RWD drivetrain was actually pretty solid, thanks to decades-long continuity of development and refinement.

Both of these brands had clearly identifiable and consistent qualities: distinctive RWD chassis, engines that excelled with their respective targets, the best styling money could buy (Pininfarina, Bertone), and top-notch performance. They were the Lexus and BMW of their time. So what happened?

Lexus and BMW.

That’s not the whole answer, but it’s a big part of it. The Japanese and Germans simply applied themselves to the business at hand in a more consistent way. The critical period was the seventies, during of a deluge of US government regulations. Draconian emission, fuel economy and safety regulations threw the whole auto industry into panic mode.

But some kept their heads cooler than others. Many smaller Europeans like Peugeot and Alfa began to founder. Cow-catcher bumpers and a tangle of emission controls ruined Alfa’s sumptuous design and performance. Peugeot’s reputation was destroyed because they couldn’t/wouldn’t properly engineer and integrate new electronics and peripherals.

Germanic engineering prowess and the Japanese system of continuous quality improvements flourished. The German’s long experience with fuel injection allowed them to keep performance mostly intact. Japanese reliability made cars like Peugeot and Alfa look increasingly unreliable, even if they were only standing still (relatively and literally).

Alfa and Peugeot could never get over the attitude of so many other European (think British) imports: America was an easy place to make money, especially when the dollar was flying high. They simply weren’t committed to having the U.S. be a key market. When the going got tough, they retreated to their home markets (or disappeared altogether).

Adding insult to injury, they also changed, for the worse. Alfa and Peugeot went down market in Europe with a full range of smaller, cheaper cars; and both abandoned their RWD platforms.

Peugeots today are frightfully ugly, with gaping maws that make Audi’s deep-throat mouth look positively prim. Peugeots share a range of cheap front wheel-drive (FWD) platforms with Citroen, another totally debased legendary marque. Peugeot competes in the mass-market; they’re NOT known for quality build or any other outstanding features.

Alfa was long assimilated into Fiat, and shares its FWD platforms, engines and other components, along with Lancia (yet another debased legendary marque).

Alfas and Peugeots would be instant dead meat in an effort to return to the US in their current all-FWD form. They’re not nearly distinctive and competitive enough to carve out a sustainable-sized niche. And that’s another key part of the story.

The US market is huge, for better and for worse. The bad part: enormous expenses establishing distributor and dealer networks and high media costs to launch an effective marketing campaign.

And the competition is deeply established. Lexus and other mid-premium brands offer Peugeot no opening. Going up against the Japanese and Korean mass-market brands would be seppuku. Alfa has a similar problem with BMW. The Bavarians never took their eye off the US market, starting with the 2002. The 3-Series is now untouchable.

Hope (and its sister, hype) springs eternal, especially in the car industry. MINI’s overwhelming success in establishing a brand-new import brand will surely feed the hope (and hype) machines.

Alfa rumors swirl through the auto-blogosphere on an almost daily basis. The Mito might make a cute companion in MINI showrooms, although its huge front overhang is disconcerting in the profile. A future range of RWD Alfas is a long-shot. But Peugeot (and current Alfas) joins the ranks of so much other European forbidden fruit that looks appealing from afar, but is rightfully left untouched.