A few weeks ago, one of our overabundance of resident Germans wrote about how Volkswagen wanted to marry the Italian bride, Signorina Alfa Romeo. The project was colloquially called “Italian dressing” (Those Germans and their crazy sense of humor(!)). But it was soon dismissed as a throwaway comment from a company hell-bent by taking over ze vorld. Well, now Piech himself is getting involved, and if Piech wants something …
The Economic Times of India reports that Ferdinand Piech has spoken at the Paris Motor Show about the Alfa Romeo acquisition. Although he was a bit more direct, he still wanted to leave some wiggle room. “We are patient and have time…you won’t hear anything though for the next two years,” said Piech when asked about market speculation on Volkswagen buying Alfa Romeo. Herr Piech, then, showed his lighter side by commenting on the fact that acquiring Alfa would leave Volkswagen AG with 13 brands. “Thirteen is my lucky number,” joked Piech. Then Piech said something rather interesting, “Seat would be to Alfa Romeo what Skoda is to Volkswagen”. Say what? Are you implying that Seat would be a cheaper version of Alfa Romeo? I wouldn’t play that game, Piech and I certainly wouldn’t use Skoda and VW as an example. Look how that turned out.
How did Fiat feel about Volkswagen making eyes at their Alfa brand? Well, they denied any interest in selling it. Even Sergio Marchionne said how the brand has huge potential. “Alfa is the one brand with the biggest potential for improvement,” said Marchionne. It seems like this saga is far from over.
13 brands ? 2010 VW Group brands : Volkswagen, Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Seat, Škoda, Scania and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles . Are they planning takeover of MAN SE and Suzuki Motor Corporation very soon ?
Ego trip… Piech wants VW to be the worlds largest auto maker.
Buying your way there is cheating. Toyota did it by actual growth.
So they didn’t buy Daihatsu and Hino?
Or the stakes they have in FHI and Isuzu
Daihatsu ownership is 51% and it is passive.
It’s still run by the same folks exactly as before Toyota got involved.
Daihatsu common stock still trades as a separate company.
Toyota’s Isuzu ownership is 5.9% …wow like Toyota really has influence.
Isuzu is still more like a GM subsidiary (it was). GM still has 12%.
Mitsubishi Motors and Itochu Corp own more of Isuzu than both Toyota and GM.
Anyway, they’re not included in Toyota’s sales figures.
Hino makes buses. They didn’t include buses in car sales figures the last time I checked.
FHI is Subaru and mini cars. It is accounted for separately. Toyota only owns 16%.
Actually, Daihatsu does sell a car overseas through FHI.
Hino makes vans too. Not a real cars but just as much car as a F150
Look what has happened to the last two biggest in the world, GM and Toyota. Granted Toyota isn’t in that bad a shape but still it has been nothing but bad news for them since they became number one. If I were Piech a strong second place would be great. Sell lots of cars, keep good quality and make lots of money.
I actually see Piech’s point about their being commonalities of spirit and mindset between Alfa and SEAT.
Besides, with the powerhouses of Alfa reliability and VW reliability combining, I see NO WAY this could possibly go wrong.
As an Alfista I have to say that Alfa has had great potential since the 30’s. They’ve just never sold very many cars. Somehow I don’t see that changing. This may sound odd at first, but I believe that there is a lesson from Oldsmobile’s experience that Piech should be wary of.
Oldsmobile had an established niche by the 60’s as a bourgeoisie GT builder. In the 70’s they cashed in on the name to become a main stream workingman’s line of cars (they had what seemed like several dozen variations of the ‘Cutlass in those years).
While this lead to a short-term (a decade?) boom in sales, it ultimately killed the brand by devaluing the name – Oldsmobile became a synonym for Chevy, particularly after the ‘any engine is an oldsmobile engine’ fiasco.
Should VW take over Alfa and do any sort of platform sharing, Alfa will suffer the same fate as Oldsmobile. “Wow an Alfa Romeo for Seat prices!” becomes “the Seat is cheaper and you get all the same stuff – why pay for just a name?”.
Alfas share platforms with Fiats now – wouldn’t be much different with VW.
I don’t see much point in VW acquiring them either, however. Between the VW brand, Seat and Skoda, and the lower end Audi’s, they already have too many applications for the same shared platforms. This really starts to look like GM redux.
Piech has made disparaging remarks about Fiat’s health a while back. Maybe he just expects Fiat to be so cash-strapped in a few years time that they will be forced to sell.
With this comment, “We are patient and have time…you won’t hear anything though for the next two years,” it is the most likely scenario.
Fiat appears to be struggling in the home market. So does Alfa. Chrysler won’t be sending remittances to Italy any time soon. Piech has a point.
Problem is, if he really wants Alfa, he should keep his mouth shut. But maybe he doesn’t want Alfa. Maybe he wants something else, and one great way to tell people you’re a buyer is to try to buy something that’s not for sale. Word gets around, and so do prospects. That’s what I think Piech is really up to.
GM goes on the block soon enough.
Alfa owned by VW? It’d be a disaster for Top Gear. Where would they get all their jokes about unreliable Alfa’s if the Germans implement their much stricter quality control?
Dude… WTF?
Stingray, I read that as sarcasm.
Seat would be to Alfa Romeo what Skoda is to Volkswagen
Aja, but wasn’t Seat supposed to be the equivalent Sköda for Audi? Or they are going to put Alfa as a middle step: Seat, Alfa, Audi.
Since Italdesign is VW-owned now, I see that this kind of rumor is going to continue. Maybe VW saw what Alfa has in the pipeline and wants part in the action.
Piech may be looking at the Fiat conglomerate’s plan to spin off Fiat cars and the truck business into two separate entities. If that doesn’t work, the Fiat cars entity might be the first to get in trouble enough to have to sell a brand like Alfa for cash. If Fiat gets in a lot of trouble, VW might be thinking of taking over the whole Fiat cars entity. Then VW would control Fiat’s managing 20% ownership of Chrysler. Does Piech have the ego to think he can succeed where Daimler failed?
Short answer, yes. German car execs seem to have no shortage of ego.
I don’t think he wants Fiat. If he did, he could have bought GM’s buy option a couple of years ago. He also could have tried to buy Opel, Volvo, Saab on the cheap – VW skipped lots of opportunities for hearse chasing recently.
Wrong Dr. Strangelove. It was a by option. Or Gm bought or no one else. If VW bought Fiat, that’d be the conundrum. Would make the Skoda thing look easy. Vw would surely say look Fiats are now VWs for cheap. Well, most of the world values VW and Fiat the same. The view that VW is somehow superior is a very 1st world thing. VW feeds from the bottom shelve here in the Southern Hemisnphere.
Don’t do it Sergio.
Alfa owned by VW? It’d be a disaster for Top Gear. Where would they get all their jokes about unreliable Alfa’s if the Germans implement their much stricter quality control?
Or the other vay around, as VeeDub picked up the Italian desease ” Fix It Again Tony” syndrome. As VW doenst enjoy a very high reliability status anyways.
Will Piech’s Schlieffen plan succeed? Take Italy in the spring?
When it gets too big it can start to cannibal your own market anyways.
BTW, lovely Ti Super at the track! Captures the essence of the Alfa brand.
Fiat doesn’t have the cash to do Alfa justice.
Sergio, invest in Alfa or sell it to someone who will!
Like who? Spyker?
Err, like VW. BMW was also mentioned about three years ago.
Although a wealthy investor would do the trick, just like Nicola Romeo did in 1915, and like David Richards did with Aston Martin in 2007. An Alfa Romeo that made only six-figure cars would be viable. Taking Alfa to the mass market after WWII may not have been a good idea in the long run but the Italian government couldn’t be seen as owning a lux auto company.
BMW would be the ideal company to run Alfa. BUT, a properly developed Alfa would compete head on with BMW.
The trick would be making Alfa a sort of entry level brand, and by doing so there’s still the risk of degrading it.
It’s more likey Fiat buys BMW than the opposite. You guys have no idea of Fiats size.
BMW is much smaller than Fiat — but it has consistently been making profits in the 3 billion euro range (bar 2009) so financially it’s in a much stronger position than Fiat.
If Ford will sell its stake ( 11 % ) in Mazda ( and probably will ), VW Group could emerge as possible suitor for Mazda . Its market capitalization is today $4.29B, and corporate law in Japan says that you only need 33.4 % of the stock to run the company . 33.4 % of Mazda is worth $1.42B whitch is no problem for VW . Controlling both Suzuki and Mazda, VW could challenge Toyota not only worldwide but even in Japan where Toyota is by far the market leader .
Mazda is only worth something in NA. Don’t know about picture in Asia, but in Europe and SA, Mazda is like, Mazda, Mazda, who?
It makes an awful lot more sense for Fiat to sell Alfa than Ferrari:
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/fiat-to-sell-ferrari-to-finance-chrysler-would-be-a-shame/
After selling Alfa, Fiat could perhaps develop the Lancia brand to cover the current Alfa market.
Selling Alfa is a non-sense. It’s a STRONG brand. Lancia on the other hand, isn’t.
Alfa Romeo is a storied, maybe even legendary brand. But it’s certainly not strong today: 100,000 sales a year only puts it into (pre-GM-bankruptcy) Saab territory, and it would be hard to argue that those are “strong” levels.
Strong in recognition. I agree on the sales point
Alfa could go. Meaybe.
Ferraii? You guys don’t know what Ferrari means to the average Italian. It and the flag are one and the same. It would be nationalized before any freakin furriners would have their chance to get their paws on it. Italian mullets indeed.
I love Fiat. I love Alfa. Sadly, I know I could (eventually) live in a world without them. Ferrari? Not run from Marinello? Without a guy with a name like Montezemullo (sp?) running it? Nope, don’t see it happening.
@stingray
BMW would be the ideal company to run Alfa. BUT, a properly developed Alfa would compete head on with BMW.
Alfa could be the lightweight, sporty divison of BMW since most agree that BMWs have moved more towards the luxury side to compete directly with Mercedes Benz. Whoever ends up running Alfa I certainly hope the cars do NOT end up like BMWs which have entered a death spiral of more mass for luxury items followed by simply bigger engines to (poorly) compensate for the extra mass. BMW: too much Cadillac not enough Lotus.
Selling Alfa is a non-sense. It’s a STRONG brand.
Alfa has strong *potential* but this potential has not been realized since early 1990s with the SZ/RZ (ES-30) cars (and the glorious 1993 DTM championship). The longer Sergio dithers the less the brand is worth as its past glories become but dim memories for fewer and fewer.