Alfa sports car will be 'a genuine Alfa'

Mike Manley admits to knowing just the broad brush strokes about Fiat's plans for a new Alfa Romeo sports car based on the Mazda MX-5.

However, the bloke who is COO of Fiat Chrysler Asia Pacific is prepared to offer his insider's view that the 'new Spider' will be an important model for the iconic brand, based on his reading of Fiat Chrysler CEO, Sergio Marchionne. Marchionne has already sent the Giulia, Alfa Romeo's next mid-size car, back to the drawing board. Mr Manley appears to be of the opinion Alfa Romeo designers will not wish to invoke a similar 'top-down' critique for the company's new sports car — so a badge-engineered twin of the Mazda will not be on the agenda.

"I don't know the intimate details, but I would seriously doubt [it]," he told motoring.com.au. "In fact I would say it absolutely won't be badge-engineered; it will be a true Alfa. One of the things that the group — whether it's Sergio Marchionne or Harald Wester, who runs the Alfa brand — is very clear on, is the development of Alfa has to be pure, genuine Alfa into the future. That will extend to every product they do. It will be the sheet metal, it will be the powertrains, it will be other things.

"So my view is: absolutely 'no'. They wouldn't badge-engineer Alfa. The way that we take it forward is fundamental to its longevity in the marketplace, so it has to be a genuine Alfa."

Depending on whether the Alfa Romeo/Mazda venture meets with critical and commercial success, it could be the start of other similar ties and alliances between the Fiat Chrysler Group and other manufacturers. It allows the group to outsource work to companies already specialising in specific areas of the industry. The group has been effectively rehearsing such joint ventures internally, between Chrysler's brands and Fiat's brands. It's not a one-way street either.

"We're going to launch a fully electric Fiat 500 in the US next year," said Mr Manley, prompted by a question concerning Chrysler's electric vehicle development — something that seemed to be on the backburner since the GFC and the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

"That vehicle, the engineering and the know-how technology came out of Chrysler. Chrysler developed that vehicle."

For his part, Mr Manley welcomes co-development projects between the group and external companies, provided such projects fit the needs of both parties. And the Mazda/Alfa sports car seems like a good starting point.

"It makes sense to me for... those 'specialty' vehicles; I do think that there are certain vehicles that it doesn't apply to. Some people would describe [Jeep] Wrangler as a specialty vehicle — and it may well have started its life that way — but it's certainly become, in terms of its volume as well as its importance to Jeep, something that you'd never dilute with anything.

"I think there are certain vehicles in certain segments where co-development is important. When I'm talking about 'co-development', I'm not talking about that badge engineering which has been something we've seen in the past, because I don't think over the long term that works for a brand at all.

"But in terms of co-development of platforms [and] powertrains to some extent, [it] absolutely makes a lot of sense. So long as the end product is distinctly the brand it's supposed to be. You can do that, as well as save a lot of the engineering, development costs by sharing certain of those investments.

"For certain segments — and for certain companies — it works very well. Think of the co-development between Fiat and Chrysler at the moment, in terms of the platform that supports [Dodge] Dart."

The case of the two companies linked by common ownership and management developing a vehicle that is effectively a badge-engineered model (the Dart shares its sheet metal with the Fiat Viaggio) isn't in the same realm as the Alfa sports car project. Viaggio and Dart were very much an in-house co-development, but Mr Manley appears of the opinion that such badge-engineered cars — along with Chrysler-based Lancias seen in Europe (Thema pictured), or the Fiat Fremont that's based on the Dodge Journey — won't be a paradigm for the new Alfa to follow. And his reasoning is founded on the importance of the brand's image.

"You could argue [the Dart is] in-house and, for sure, as Fiat increases their share it becomes increasingly in-house, but there are many vehicles where... the brand integrity has been maintained but there's been co-development of the vehicle. It's arms-length and I think that is something for the future and something we should continue to look at."

That bodes well for the new car; and logically the Alfa version must look entirely different from the MX-5 if they're to sell in the same markets. There's no doubt the next MX-5 will sell in Australia, and Mr Manley has fingers crossed the Alfa will come here also.

"For me, because Alfa has so much potential around the world, making sure that we had a full portfolio would be very interesting.

"I would say there's every possibility of a right-hand drive version of that vehicle... this vehicle is going to be an important part of the Alfa brand, and has to be right-hand drive."

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