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Bruce Newton12 Dec 2014
NEWS

Australia important for reborn Alfa

New boss sees opportunities for SUVs and rear-drive small cars

Our enthusiasm for prestige and performance cars and SUVs means Australia will be an important sales market for reborn Alfa Romeo.

That's the view of the man charged with the job of managing the Italian brand's ambitious local expansion plans over the next three years, new Fiat Chrysler Australia president and CEO Patrick Dougherty.

The American, who officially took over the job last Monday, will be in the hot seat locally as Alfa expands from three to eight model families by 2018 with the aim of lifting global sales from 74,000 in 2013 to 400,000 by 2018.

"We don't see ourselves selling Alfas in the same range as we do today, we are going upscale," said Dougherty, although he refused to discuss how far volume aspirations head north in Australia from the 2700-odd sales it will achieve in 2014.

"We are going to try and get the authentic Italian design and the passion for that Italian design and also the performance that came with that brand. They did have a history of racing, they were in Formula One and they won, so we are going to try and get some of that energy back in this market.

"This [Australia] is a very important market for Alfa Romeo because it is a growing market and what I have seen so far [it's] a stronger premium car market on a per capita basis than a lot of other markets around the world ... when I look at the numbers they tell me there is a good opportunity for us."

The rebirth of Alfa begins in Australia with the first examples of the 4C sports coupe finally arriving late this year and early in 2015. But the real push begins much later in the year with the launch of a mid-size sedan based on a new rear and all-wheel drive architecture dubbed Giorgio.

Also coming from that architecture will be two replacements for the Giulietta small car, a four-door coupe, a large sedan, two cross-overs – a mid-sizer in 2016 and a large wagon in 2018 – and a halo sports car. The current Mito small car will not be directly replaced.

Alfa will spend five billion Euros out to 2018 on this massive model expansion.

"The product that we will be coming to market with – that we have not seen – is going to be pretty special; good Italian heritage and a lot of passion behind the brand, good performance, styling, heritage. The performance of Alfa Romeo is going to be very strong."

At the same time as he manages Alfa's expansion, Dougherty must also oversee the fortunes of FCA's five other local brands – Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Fiat Professional and Jeep.

Of that lot Jeep is in the rudest of health, acting as the cornerstone of a 33 per cent sales rise for the group so far in 2014; Fiat is also growing quickly, while Alfa is up, Dodge and Fiat Professional static and Chrysler down.

With Jeep performing so well and the SUV segment holding up much better overall than traditional passenger car sales segments, Dougherty is convinced Alfa's two cross-overs will perform particularly well for the brand.

"There are two different [Alfa] products sitting in the SUV category and we don't know what they look like yet and where they are going to be positioned exactly, but based on how the other guys are doing we think there are opportunities here," Dougherty said.

Overall the Australian SUV segment is up 5.5 per cent in 2014, while SUV medium over $60,000 is up 12.6 per cent and SUV Large over $70,000 up 12.7 per cent. The overall market is down 2.2 per cent year to date.

Dougherty also faces the intriguing challenge of selling a rear-wheel drive small car, a niche BMW will all but abandon when it launches the next generation front and all-wheel drive 1 Series in 2018.

"This is just me speaking, but I would think [there is an opportunity there]," he said. "You all know how different it feels driving rear-wheel drive from front-wheel drive products.

"They have a different feel to them and I think most folks that are performance enthusiasts really like the feel of the rear-wheel drive or the all-wheel drive."

Dougherty said he was confident the bad old days of poor durability were behind Alfa and would not impact on local sales ambitions.

"It's going to be better than what it was remembered for," he promised. "Everyone still loves the brand but everyone understands that way back when we had some issues ... today's Alfa is a different Alfa than we are going to be tomorrow."

He also promised, given the time lag in getting the 4C to Australia, that he would speed up the delivery process. It currently takes three months to get a car from the factory in Italy to Australia.

"One of the things we are trying to do is doing a better job of sourcing the product in terms of taking time out of the supply chain ... That (three months) is too long."

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