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Re: alfa-digest V7 #1141
In a message dated 11/05/1999 8:53:43 PM Pacific Standard Time,
owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided writes:
<< Could Alfa have benefited from our relatively "good" economic times now?
Yes,
I think so, but did they want to wait for things to change? Obviously not
and
now the capital costs to reenter the market would be prohibitive.
>>
Alfa also had a lot of trouble with its USA dealer network. In trying to
expand they went into that weirdo deal with Chrysler (which later went to
those weirdo purple cars in the same search for floor traffic builders to
draw the suckers in to their otherwise boring lineup; since, they've tried to
make their bread-and-butter line more interesting, or at least gold and
purple). I think those Alfa/Chrysler agreements are just now expiring. They
may possibly have seen it to be cheaper to just abandon the market they had
so disastrously and frequently misjudged rather than pay any sort of extra
premium (insult to injury) to get out of those agreements prematurely. Now
that they've expired, that's one more impediment out of the way. Sure,
they'd have to start all over w/ a USA dealer network, but what they had
before was most likely not worth keeping anyhow.
I agree with the thought that if Alfa returns to N. America, it will be as
part of a motor group allied with another maker so yield something
approaching the critical mass needed. I think FIAT would be happy to sell
their auto division or merge it with someone else, if the marriage is right.
Scanning the world, who else is in a similar position and has a large dealer
network but nothing much in competition with their top marques? Slap me with
a slippery seppio, but I think Nissan, also in the dumpster.
Charlie
LA, CA, USA
75
GTV6
spider
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