For years, Fiat has had a plan to bring Alfa Romeo back to the United States market. It seems as if the time has finally come though, with the brand set to return for 2011 according to some sources.
While originally it seemed as if Alfa Romeos would be imported for sale here in our market, the Chrysler tieup is upending all of those plans. Edmunds’ Inside Line is reporting that the replacement for Alfa Romeo’s 166 sedan will be built in North America. Alfa Romeo expects the majority of the car’s sales to be in the United States, with the rest imported to the rest of the world.
The key in all of this is that Alfa Romeo has deemed rear-wheel drive as essential to compete properly in the luxury segment. We have a winner there! Instead of having to develop an all-new architecture of it’s own though, Alfa Romeo already has access to them through the LX platform that underpins the Chrysler 300C, Dodge Charger and Dodge Challenger (in shortened form).
Alfa Romeo is planning to use the platform as a basis only (no rebadges here), with unique tuning and powertrains. If the opportunities between the two are successfully leveraged, I could see Alfa Romeo making a very successful return.
September 29th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Decent potential on that deal. Thank god they’re not talking about basing new Alfas on the Sebring platform.
One drawback to using the 300C platform is that none of the new Dodge RWD cars are particularly good handlers… Well, nowhere near what you would expect of an Alfa. Let’s hope that “tuning” implies chassis tuning and not just an ECU reflash.