Re: Alfa US Sales

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

In AD7-1436 Italiacars writes "3,000 cars a year is not a lot. The annual US 
auto sales range from 12 to 15 million. I don't know what the total 
membership is in AROC but if it is even 1/4 the size of the Porsche club that 
would be 25,000 members. Enough to support over 8 years of 3,000 units per 
year.  "

He right on at least one thing, he don't have the foggiest on "what the total 
membership is in AROC". Over the years it has hovered about one fifth that, 
usually closer to a sixth, enough (assuming his ratio of 
cars-per-year-per-member) to support sales of from five to six hundred units 
a year.

I have avoided horning in on the recent iteration of the perennial 
sales/pullout/return discussion, and probably should now, but the toe is in 
the water. One of the reasons there is a huge gap between the few elders like 
Dr. Paul Tenney (who signed himself "FOAR", for Friend of Alfa Romeo) and so 
many digestisti is that the first thousand or so members of AROC (with 
notable exceptions, like Pat Braden) were people who could afford mid-scale 
new cars and had the particular taste to go out and buy NEW small sports cars 
which represented a very high level of design and execution but were not 
particularly cheap compared to much larger sports cars of appreciably higher 
performance; a Giulietta rather than an XK-120, 1.3 liters versus 3.5 liters, 
paired with finned alloy drums rather than as-cast cast-iron ones, bronze 
lug-nuts instead of perfectly adequate steel ones, and on and on, detail 
after detail.

Then the crunch starts. The first Super Spider (Veloce outside the US) which 
I saw had, draped on it, the owner of a six-month old Spider ("Normale" now, 
but just "Spider" then) who wanted to trade it in. Since practically everyone 
in the USA who wanted (and could afford) an Alfa already had one the initial 
depreciation was murderous, and it stayed that way. My first Alfa, a pristine 
two-year old Giulietta with 13,000 miles on it, cost me about one-third its 
new price, not a whole lot more than I had previously paid for a clapped-out 
five-year old MG TD at about half its new price.

Yes, there are some AROC members (and some digestisti) who bought new cars 
and would buy new cars again, but I remember innumerable meeting discussions 
about "I want a Milano" (or a GTV-6, or an Alfetta, or a GT Veloce) "but I 
will wait until the used price drops to about $x,xxx and pick up a nice one". 
The next step down the ownership ladder is someone who won't do a paint job 
(or a clutch, and then next year it will need shocks and probably synchros,) 
"and why spend all that money when I can dump it and get a better one for 
probably $y,yyy?" Then comes the true bottom feeder, who can milk another 
year or two with minimum maintenance before the crusher. The AROC membership, 
by and large, are not people who would now actually go out and spend $30,000 
for a 156 or $40,000 for a new GTV even if they were rear-wheel drive. "I can 
wait a year and - - "

And then there is the dealership, and the market. That first Super Spider I 
saw was in a big city dealership which had a small garage (without even a 
lift) behind a storefront, with a staff of the owner, his wife (the 
bookkeeper), his two sons (the service department) and a parts man (the paid 
employee), and his dealership handled Triumph, Austin Healy, Jaguar, and MG 
as well as Alfa. Today the norm (at least where I live) for a marque with 
reasonable aspirations is a posh new stand-alone facility in a 
location-location-location, a couple of million dollars up front, and a 
weekly payroll that supports at least ten families- something between a 
quarter of a million and half a million dollars a year minimum, on top of 
perhaps ten or twenty thousand dollars a month to the bank for interest. 
Multiply that by fifty - a reasonably modest national dealer network- and add 
advertising costs- television, national magazines, and support for the 
dealer's newspaper advertising - and you have something which is not going to 
be supported by the profit margins on national sales of a couple of thousand 
cars.

My wild stabs at the numbers may be way off, but there is a big gap between 
the marketing costs of a mini-niche car like Morgan (no advertising, no rent, 
no salaries) and a big-niche car like Range Rover. Dream whatever scenarios 
you want to, but I will continue to believe that the Alfas we have are the 
Alfas we are going to have, less the ones that get funnelled into the crusher.

As they say, End of rant. Enjoy yours, 

John H.
Raleigh, N.C.

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End of alfa-digest V7 #1437
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