Alfa romances US car lovers — and bean counters — again
Fiat Chrysler’s bold experiment has paid off as the Italian brand shows BMW and Mercedes a cheeky finger
New York — Alfa Romeo, the Italian brand built (and rebuilt) on 1960s sex appeal, posted the biggest surge in US sales in 2017, an anachronistic result in an industry mesmerised by battery packs and self-piloted transportation pods. The car maker won its bragging rights the old-fashioned way — through performance. Alfas have curb appeal, powerful engines and solid engineering. Make no mistake, car executives are watching the Alfa Romeo experiment closely. It’s not something one sees all that often in the car business. Fiat Chrysler assembled an experimental unit of marketing gurus and Ferrari engineers and told them to dream big. It also promised to "protect" them from senior leadership — the people who look for the kinds of parts-sharing, co-operation and badge engineering that make a contemporary car conglomerate a profit machine. The bar for success, of course, is very low for Alfa Romeo. The Fiat Chrysler-owned brand has been largely dormant in the US for almost 25 years. In 201...
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