What's Wrong With This Picture: The Journey To The Chrysler TC Begins With A Single Step Edition

If Toyota starts giving out Corolla's with a gussied up leather package to me when my Lexus is in for service I'd be pissed. Toyota of course will never do this because they know how to make a luxury brand feel luxurious and from my experience it seems they value maintaining the customers satisfaction. This move seems to be Fiat's admission that the Maserati brand is still un-reliable and they expect a volume of service visits to great to provide luxury branded loaners. It also seems to indicate that Fiat see's Maserati's decreased market value and doesn't feel giving out their equivalent to a gussied up Corolla as a loaner will further damage the brand. Another real possibility is that Fiat does not have the money to use luxury branded loaners that they then cannot sell without liquidation due to the brand worth being so damaged.

Maybe it's just not realistic to lend out Maseratis as loaners, so instead they just try to make their customers feel special by loaning them an exclusive edition of a half-way interesting car. Really, if it were your business to make money selling Maseratis, what would you use for a loaner?

@Srogers, a very big +1 Alfa Romeos are not Corollas and have long been perceived as the baby Ferrari, baby Maser. I'm sure those Maserati owners have owned Alfas in the past and are probably smiling with nostalgia thinking about the days when they had less money and more hair. This is just another indication that Sergio knows his customers far better than many of us here.

Ummm, not so fast. It's just like at Ferrari dealerships where you get a special Ferrari style Panda for when your car is down. It's a marketing action. And as such, what's really the problem here?