FCA Boss Admits A Maser Mistake

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

Earlier this year your humble scribe was in the Detroit suburbs to drive a whole bunch of Maserati and Alfa Romeo product at an event that was separate from and yet still part of Fiat Chrysler’s annual What’s New media-drive event.

That sounds contradictory, so let me explain. The two Italian luxury brands were showcased separately from the others, with a separate dinner and a separate drive. The drive took place not at Chrysler’s venerable proving grounds in Chelsea, but across the metro area in Pontiac, at a small private racetrack. The focus of that day was almost exclusively on Alfa and Maserati products.

It was clear that FCA was trying to bring the brands further into the corporate fold, while also associating them more closely with each other, since both are supposed to offer luxury and performance.

New FCA chief Mike Manley has now said that efforts to pair the two in the minds of consumers may have been a mistake.

“With hindsight, when we put Maserati and Alfa together, it did two things,” he said on a conference call, according to Automotive News. “Firstly, it reduced the focus on Maserati the brand. Secondly, Maserati was treated for a period of time almost as if it were a mass market brand, which it isn’t and shouldn’t be treated that way.”

Manley eventually appointed Harald Wester, who previously served as chief technology officer for FCA, back to the top chair at Maserati. Wester led the brand from 2008 to 2016.

Marketing is the least of Maserati’s troubles, though. The brand is down 16 percent in sales year over year through the first 10 months of 2018, with sluggish sales in China and tighter emissions regulations in Europe partly to blame. Earnings fell by 87 percent to 15 million euros in the third quarter.

Meanwhile, Wester hired executive Jean-Philippe Leloup away from Ferrari to run a new venture called Maserati Commercial.

A dearth of product adds to the woes. The Levante SUV exists in the only SUV class that isn’t seeing growth, and it’s two years older than its prime competitors. Promised Maseratis such as the Alfieri and a mid-size SUV have yet to materialize, and a promise to electrify the brand (literally, with the addition of battery-electric vehicles) has also yet to come to fruition.

The Levante, Ghibili, and Quattroporte are soldiering on, for now.

Manley did hint at some sort of action planned for the final quarter of this year, and he also said he believes the brand can make its 2022 target of 15 percent profit margin.

[Image: Maserati]

Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • Add Lightness Add Lightness on Nov 19, 2018

    After a day on the bike in tough weather, I get home and go for an errand in my Honda. I have heat, a seat, windows and a radio. I always think to myself 'This is an absolute luxurious experience' Just how much luxury do we need in life? BTW, luxury and performance are basically at opposite ends of the automotive spectrum and trying to have both in the same package is nothing but a big compromise.

  • Markogts Markogts on Nov 22, 2018

    These are the same bunch of clueless guys who sold a Chrysler 300M under a Lancia badge. Now, maybe in the US is not well known, anyway, Lancia has always been associated with FWD, so this was the second most stupid move in FCA history. Now Lancia is a dead brand, and no one of these top brass will be held accountable. If you wonder which is the most stupid move made in the history of FCA (well, FIAT) just google "Alfa Romeo 155". You shouldn't treat a car company as a kitchen appliance company: there are traditions and engineering choice history that go way deeper than the shape of a grille.

    • Inside Looking Out Inside Looking Out on Nov 25, 2018

      Lancia still exist as a "fashion micro car" whatever it implies and there are even Black Friday deals available. FIAT killed Lancia and in the process of killing Chrysler and Dodge too. Next will be probably Maserati. FCA is clueless.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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