FWD Alfas

[grizzo@domain.elided]

<<I don't think it matters what the "majority of USA alfisti" are turned off
by - Alfa failed in the USA because they couldn't sell cars to anybody other
than a small segment of the market.

FWD or RWD, the new Spider and GTV would have sold well over here either
way..

bs>>

Doug. 
I hafta agree with Brian, Alfa's problem was that the only buyers of the cars
were Alfisti, and in the end offering only a large 4-door sedan RWD or FWD was
not enough.While sedans are no turn of to Alfisti for sure, what about the 155
which was more in line with Alfa 's sport sedan heritage and a more suitable
follow up to the Milano. And no sports car/spider?? Come on, these are the only
things non-alfisti would buy. The number of petite little women driving 80's
spiders in Southern California who couldn't care less where Arese is, far
outnumber the dyed in the wool Alfisti as far as I can tell, of course mow
they're trading in for Miata/Z3/SLK whatever instead of a new Alfa spider (think
they woulda known it was FWD?) I read in CAR magazine that while RWD may return
for the GTV/Spider series, the mainstream models will stay FWD with the
occasional AWD variant(ie 156 GTA). Production costs make this a reality. The
truth is, for Alfa to return sucsesfully, they must be able to sell cars to
non-alfisti (pre-converts) just like BMW sells tons of cars to image conscious
people who want a well put together sports sedan, for the hardcore BMW nuts,
you've got the M. Honda does a good job of this too with the limited edition
Type-R series.

This is indeed a break from the past (Normale/Veloce etc.) but I don't think any
of us would mind being the ones to drive the Alfa Cloverleaf series (like an M
brand) while the common populace drives the  lower performing mass appeal Alfas.

OK, 'nuff said.

Giovanni 
1988 Milano CLOVERLEAF 3.0

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