Death of Alfa

["Guy Swarbrick" <gswarbrick@domain.elided>]

I'm so glad that the GM-FIAT deal has made our American cousins happy. Yes,
you may get the 156 replacement in a showroom near you, but if it's based on
the Vauxhall/Opel Vectra platform, you'll wish you hadn't. Unlikely? Try
telling that to the owners of current Saabs, based on the apalling
Ascona/Cavalier chassis that was old before the GM takeover.

FIAT - Driven by passion
Alfa Romeo - Cuore Sportivo
GM - Anonymous, gutless, badge-engineering on a jello chassis

Depressed? Even the fact that someone just reversed into my Sprint can't
take the edge of this. GM is the worst car company on the planet. Bar none.
Even the Proton GTi is fun.

And don't start with that 'the latest 'vette is a nice car' nonsense. It
isn't. It's an apalling lardy piece of junk. It's just nice by American
standards.

And that's part of the problem, of course. You guys judge GM from the wrong
frame of reference. First, you compare its soggy domestic output with the
other soggy North American spec rubbish. GM Europe's output, relative to its
European competition, is way behind. Most cars are the worst or among the
worst in class. There isn't a sports car among them. Second, most of you
haven't driven the latest Alfas, so you don't know how much better they are
now than the cars that were sold in NA.

The comment that Agnelli ruined Alfa is the biggest load of horse**** I've
ever read. Prior to the arrival of the 145/146/GTV/Spider, Alfa was in
serious decline. The cars, by and large, were an awful mess and had been for
10 years. The marque was withdrawn not just from NA but from Australia and
New Zealand as well. Not out of spite, but because nobody would by the cars.