RE: Alfa Romeo Giulia - official!
Discussion
Ali_T said:
Hope so too, or this could be the shortest Alfa revival in history. Looking lovely and having great engines isn't enough against ze Germans. Competitive finance and decent dealers will make the sales or result in the demise if Alfa!
The 159 and Brera revisal was spectacularly short! All that effort for models which ran between 2006 and 2012ish?I adore Alfa. I've had one, my family several and I long to own another. However, even I will say that you should never underestimate the ability of Alfa Romeo to royally f**k things up.
jamies30 said:
J-P said:
I don't know somebody posted £70k further up. In any case that would be too much unless you got loads of the trick stuff as standard.
Ah, OK - that's a figure Ali made up. TBH, until the UK spec and price is announced, it seems a bit ridiculous to be complaining about it. 
The dealers can make or break this car. Back in the day a lot of business users were tempted out of the 3 series into the 156, and the dealer experience was so wretched they vowed never to go back. FIAT would be advised to market the Giulia through Sytner/Graypaul Maserati type dealers than the ragtag mob currently out there selling 2 Giuliettas and 1 Mito a month.
J-P said:
kambites said:
feef said:
Is the current Ghibli engine not also a 90 degree V6? I was under the impression it was near as damnit the same unit
No, I think it's 60 degree. Kolbenkopp said:
monamimate said:
The fact that they churn out pretty similar cars is merely proof that consumers are pretty similar sort of people...
I agree with that conclusion, but do you think it works long time for a company? Outstanding products are made by engineers, designers and entrepreneurs with big plans and even bigger balls. Not by marketing. That is an important support function, but should no way be in charge. 'If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses'.
Most of the sexy decisions at the top of an engineering function are marketing decisions about what will be most attractive to the buyers, and how to make it profitable. Anything to do with styling and package and performance is marketing-led, whichever department is actually doing it.
The engineering - like how to bolt it together, rust prevention, tooling, is done lower down.
Whatever commercial example of engineering genius you would like to forward, the engineer was probably doing some of his best marketing thinking before cracking the solution.
trashbat said:
1500kg supposedly, but again I think maybe we should wait until someone independent puts it on the scales.
If that's true, 500+bhp does seem a bit OTT but I guess Alfa being Alfa that'll be dry and probably understated anyway. I think if it ends up under 1700kg on the road with common options, they'll have done pretty well. SpeckledJim said:
Terrible example. The Ford model T was conceived to sell, and sell it did. Whether it was an engineer or marketer making the big decisions, they were marketing decisions that were being made. [...]
monamimate said:
Porsche recently won Le Mans with new technology, developed by very smart engineers. But tell me honestly, do you think that win was an engineering or a marketing success? Which department do you think convinced management to go ahead with that expenditure? Engineering? I don't think so...
I see your points, but I'd class these big decision as "entrepreneurial"? All down to definition, I suppose. But apologies for the thread derailment. Let's move on, shall we?
Some nice reactions from Alfa's competition on Italian twitter:
H. Ford said: "When I see an Alfa Romeo go by, I tip my hat." Welcome Alfa Giulia, see you on the track.
Stop what you're doing, we have to welcome the return of the Giulia! See you around!
Finally racing together again. Welcome back Alfa Romeo!
Kolbenkopp said:
I see your points, but I'd class these big decision as "entrepreneurial"? All down to definition, I suppose.
But apologies for the thread derailment. Let's move on, shall we?
Some nice reactions from Alfa's competition on Italian twitter:
H. Ford said: "When I see an Alfa Romeo go by, I tip my hat." Welcome Alfa Giulia, see you on the track.
Stop what you're doing, we have to welcome the return of the Giulia! See you around!
Finally racing together again. Welcome back Alfa Romeo!
Those tweets are great, just goes to show how much love there is for the brand (and clever respect from the marketing people)But apologies for the thread derailment. Let's move on, shall we?
Some nice reactions from Alfa's competition on Italian twitter:
H. Ford said: "When I see an Alfa Romeo go by, I tip my hat." Welcome Alfa Giulia, see you on the track.
Stop what you're doing, we have to welcome the return of the Giulia! See you around!
Finally racing together again. Welcome back Alfa Romeo!
Edited by craig_m67 on Sunday 28th June 23:00
Ali_T said:
Guvernator said:
Wait what now? Where did that £70k figure come from?
An Italian motoring website. Trying to find the link but it's buried in hundreds of Giulia related posts!Ali_T said:
I wonder if, like the 4C and Giulietta QV, they're doing a launch edition with all the carbon bits and brakes and that there's a cheaper "normal" version coming?
Yeah, pretty sure they would not make ultra expensive stuff such as the brakes and trick diff a mandatory standard feature on the QV. Not sure about the engine, a 400 PS state of tune would be ample -- if they really hit their proclaimed weight targets. Interestingly, AR chief Harald Wester [1] was the guy in charge of the Audi A2 program back in the 90es. Is that a good or a bad omen 
? Ironically, back again to the marketing stuff (sorry
). Going to be interesting to see what labels they will stick on the thing. Bit surprised they've used "QV" for the monster they just launched. QV used to be a fancy trim level in recent times, and stats wise no doubt we are looking what would previously have been called a GTA. In that respect they are doing it differently than BMW (who are turning their "M" stuff into a trim level).I'll have a 1.3t / 260 hp no options "Veloce" please
.[1] http://www.fcagroup.com/en-us/governance/managemen...
Guvernator said:
If that turns out to be true they'll sell about 2.
Not sure, there seems to be a very good market for limited volume hard core Alfa versions. They raised the price of the 4C here, to now 62.2 k€ and the drop top to 72k€ -- and they are still sold out. The guys that courageously pulled the trigger on a launch 4C will be quite happy with that.Guvernator said:
Like it or not, Alfa just doesn't have the reputation or badge to compete with Ze Germans on price. If there cars can't undercut the monthly PCP figures on the equivalent Germans I fear this will be a short-lived revival.
Agree for the more common models. Perhaps not undercut, but at the very least be similar to the German stuff. Jaguar have been doing exactly this for the XE. Hope this will work out for the underdogs so that we get some variety back!Kolbenkopp said:
Ironically, back again to the marketing stuff (sorry ). Going to be interesting to see what labels they will stick on the thing. Bit surprised they've used "QV" for the monster they just launched. QV used to be a fancy trim level in recent times, and stats wise no doubt we are looking what would previously have been called a GTA. In that respect they are doing it differently than BMW (who are turning their "M" stuff into a trim level).
I think QV makes sense. They're taking Alfa back to its roots, at the very least 30 years to the last RWD 75. Back in the old days QV meant the go fast version. The A in GTA stands for Alleggrita or lightened (appreciate you may know this), something that the last GTA's (156/147) were quite simply not. Lovely quick cars but not correctly named given they're heavier than the everyday version (flamesuiton).). Going to be interesting to see what labels they will stick on the thing. Bit surprised they've used "QV" for the monster they just launched. QV used to be a fancy trim level in recent times, and stats wise no doubt we are looking what would previously have been called a GTA. In that respect they are doing it differently than BMW (who are turning their "M" stuff into a trim level).This new Giula is "estimated" to be 1500kg, I think Wester has said (topgear?) the everyday cooking versions will be 1400kg, so again, it's not significantly lighter (if at all), just faster and full of trick QV bits.
Edited by craig_m67 on Monday 29th June 01:21
Jimbo. said:
The 159 and Brera revisal was spectacularly short! All that effort for models which ran between 2006 and 2012ish?
I adore Alfa. I've had one, my family several and I long to own another. However, even I will say that you should never underestimate the ability of Alfa Romeo to royally f**k things up.
Yeh, heard it all before, massive sales volume increases, decent residual estimates, the start of a new range of refreshed, vibrant new models. None of which happened.I adore Alfa. I've had one, my family several and I long to own another. However, even I will say that you should never underestimate the ability of Alfa Romeo to royally f**k things up.
I love Alfas too (but not really the current ones) and owned four between 2000 and 2007 but I think they need to build up customer confidence (and bring back a local dealer they closed down) before any mighty revival can take place. It just feels like bigwigs are taking turns to turn Alfa around into a financially successful manufacturer with big claims but little momentum.
The "problem" with an all new Alfa with new engines and drivetrain is it opens up the whole unreliability perception which is mighty hard to break. When I bought a new 156 in 2003 my boss asked me if they still rusted, I said it wasn't the seventies! Yet the perception of poor reliability and rusting lives on and the lack of continuity of models in this sector to evolve and grow confidence will hurt them IMHO as it lacks a solid base.
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