A production version of the Maserati Alfieri Coupe Concept should reach market in 2016.
It’s been a frustratingly long wait for fans of Italy’s Alfa Romeo, two decades of hints and promises that the brand was finally heading back to the U.S. market followed by repeated delays – Alfa only showing off its new 4C sports car at last month’s New York Auto Show.
While Maserati fans have had a little more to cheer about, the upscale brand has only just begun to show its potential with recent product launches like the new Ghibli and redesigned Quattroporte.
But the two marques seem destined to have a much brighter, product-rich future. At this week’s day-long strategy session, officials from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles outlined plans that could see a flood of new products roll into showrooms for both Maserati and Alfa. In fact, the latter maker is set to benefit from a newly unveiled “skunk works program” that is expected to yield a full eight new models by 2018.
Alfa has had a long, sometimes proud but often troubled, history that saw it taken over by the Fiat Group in 1986. But that initially produced a series of sorry products that failed to capitalize on the brand’s long history of success on the race track, said Alfa CEO Harald Wester. “We never achieved the goal of winning on Sunday and selling on Monday.”
(For more on Fiat Chrysler Automobile’s strategic plan, Click Here.)
The new Alfa Romeo 4C debuting in NY.
Alfa attempted a comeback a few years back with the bigger 8C sports car but didn’t develop enough momentum to consider a full U.S. re-launch until after parent Fiat took control of Chrysler, post-bankruptcy, in 2009. And, even then, the debut of the little 4C was repeatedly pushed back.
But as that sports car’s debut approached, Alfa began strategizing about the future, Wester saying that it quickly became apparent “we needed a radical solution.” That led it to set up the new skunk works which was given the rather demanding mandate to “innovate and be revolutionary.”
Alfa products will need to deliver five key attributes going forward:
- Advanced, innovative powertrains;
- A “perfect,” 50/50 weight balance;
- Unique technical solutions
- An extremely high power-to-weight ratio; and
- “Groundbreaking” and “distinctly Italian” designs.
The new team already numbers 200 of what Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne calls the company’s best and brightest engineers – a group expected to reach 600 by next year. It has also been given a promise of significant autonomy from the parent company “except where talent is needed,” said Wester – Marchionne later cautioning that the skunk works team’s progress will be subject to review.
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But perhaps most importantly, FCA has set aside a budget of 5 billion Euros, or nearly $7 billion at the current exchange rate.
Alfa’s future product portfolio, Wester hinted, will range from compact sports cars to full-size utility vehicles. They will be delivered in rear-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive configurations, and will be powered by all new four- and 6-cylinder diesel and gas engines likely to deliver as much as 600 horsepower.
And the first of them will be debuting by late 2015, the rest by 2018. If all goes well, the maker expects to boost global sales from a meager 74,000 last year to 400,000 over that time period.
For its part, Maserati is betting on a sales jump from last year’s 15,400 to 75,000 by the end of 2018, said Wester, who also serves at the higher-end marque’s chief executive.
Maserati has already begun to show significant momentum in recent months, thanks to the debut of new products like Ghibli and Quattroporte. And it had one of the hands-down favorites at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show with its Alfieri Coupe Concept, which is now slated to be put into production in 2016.
It will join the brand’s first-ever SUV, the Levante, which shares the basic underpinnings of the popular Jeep Grand Cherokee – but which will draw power from a Ferrari-derived powertrain.
Also on tap, a new version of the Maserati GranTurismo scheduled for 2018, the replacement model to boast a new 560-horsepower V-8 engine, also based on a Ferrari powertrain. Expect to see that V-8 work its way into other key Maserati models, including the Levante and Quattroporte.
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By the end of the new FCA strategic plan, expect to see a total of six new Maserati models, the automaker also set to benefit from a new range of powertrains that include not only that gas-fired V-8 but new diesels, as well.
Summing it all up, Wester seemed to almost make it an understatement when he declared, “We’re at an important juncture in our history.”
It remains to be seen how well Alfa and Maserati will execute on their new plans. They’ve had plenty of quality and design issues over the decades. But if they come in with truly world-class offerings, it could be a truly revolutionary moment for both of the Italian marques.