Piech Still Has The Hots For Alfa
Ferdi Piech is trying his hand at instigating a velvet revolution. He is dangling huge sales increases at Alfa in front of workers and customers, hoping that they string up Marchionne and ask Volkswagen to take over Alfa. Or something along these lines. Anyway, Piech said in Geneva that Volkswagen could nearly quadruple the annual sales of Alfa Romeo, if Fiat would only do the right thing and sell Volkswagen the ailing Alfa brand.
At yesterday’s Group Grope Night,Piech said that in five years, Volkswagen could pump Alfa’s sales up to nearly 400,000 cars, Automotive News [sub] reports.
Sergio Marchionne dismisses these advances by the 74 year old. Marchionne said last month: ” Marchionne handed out some advice while ha was at it: Piech should concentrate on fixing SEAT. Very funny. In the 80s, Volkswagen had to swoop in and rescue SEAT, after SEAT’s partner Fiat ran out of money.
Yesterday evening Piech said he can wait for the right moment to woo Alfa away: “Volkswagen has time.”
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Sure like Dumler saved Chrysler, this joker will save Alfa ...sure.
After seeing the Chrysler 300 with the Alfa badge, At least VW would keep the Alfa Romeo brand from being diluted... and in the process actually make it profitable.
Folks, it's all about money. VW has it, Fiat doesn't. What money Fiat does have is going toward reviving Chrysler. Fiat doesn't even have enough money to keep the Alfa Romeo museum open. Marchionne is a good executive, but he lacks resources to do Alfa justice. Both Marchionne and Piech know this.
Perhaps Piech could buy Consumers Union instead and muzzle their continued reports of poor reliability and perception? Or, better, Piech could get serious about fixing Audi's reliability and VW's dealer network. Then he could truly sell a lot more cars in the USA, and have even more money to wrestle Afla from Fiat.