re: North American Alfa Sales Figures

["Sedon, Doug (OD/ORS)" <sedond@domain.elided>]

hi john, ewe said:
>Someone on the digest mentioned a while ago that Alfa only sold around
>10,000 to 15,000 vehicles per year in the last years in the N.A. market and
>their target was 100K per year.  the actual figures from an old AutoWeek
>article (who's source was ARDONA and NHSTA) were:
>
>1990  3,482  
>1991  3,478  
>1992  2,828 
>1993  1,325 
>1994  565  
>1995  414  
>
>I think if they had sold 10,000 to 15,000 per year we'd still be able to buy
>a new Alfa.
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i think the majority of usa alfisti are turned off by fwd, and the mainstream
usa car-buying public is (was) turned off by perceived alfa quality problems.
if the 164 were rwd, alfa may *have* sold 5-10k cars/year here; if the gnu
156/166/gtv were rwd, alfa could have stayed here, & volume mite now be up to
20k units per year.  but why should alfa go to rwd for such a small market, when
the rest of the world doesn't seem to mind fwd, & where alfa sales are doing
well?  i think alfa knows this about the usa market, which is prolly why they
decided not to bring over the fwd gtv/spider in '95, instead deciding to yust go
home...

doug s.

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