"I would not import the Alfa Romeo sedans", he says

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

Howard K. Warren has proposed, and Don Maxltv agrees, that when/if Alfa 
reenters the US market they should not import Alfa Romeo sedans: as Don says, 
"In this country, the spiders have far outsold the sedans repeatedly, and 
there is no sense in fighting the market."

While there is no telling what sales logic might appeal to another 
owner/manager, that is not quite the way it has looked to European 
owner/managers in the past.
 
Counting noses from the inception of the 2000 in 1971 through 1996, Alfa has 
sold thirty-eight times as many sedans as Spiders; sedans are where their 
actual market lay. Outside the aberrant US market, where spiders have 
ostensibly far outsold the sedans repeatedly, the proportion would be 
radically different. Using another example, the new fwd Spider may be a 
marvelous car, but in the period since its inception Alfa has sold four times 
as many small diesel-engined economy sedans as Spiders. The panache of the 
Spiders may help to sell the grungy little diesels, but leaving the sales of 
not only the grungy little diesels but also the rest of the sedans out of the 
picture in a particular market probably misses the point, at least from the 
view of the marketer who wants to sell those thirty-eight sedans. Restating 
Don's line- ("In this country, the spiders have far outsold the sedans 
repeatedly, and there is no sense in fighting the market"), management 
evidently concluded that in this country the company has never been able to 
sell appreciable quantities of its main products, despite fair sales of one 
of the sidelines, and a point comes when there is no sense in fighting the 
market. So they left.

John H.
Raleigh, N.C.

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