Fiat to Spin off Ferrari

Exactly. until WW II Alfa produced world-class race cars and exclusive luxury sports and gran turismo cars. After the War it sought a much broader market and built the small, jewel-like sports cars we love, the Giulietta spyders and coupes. FIAT took over Alfa in 1986 when most of the damage had already been done. That said, one can blame FIAT for its inability to turn Alfa around.

The history seems an ominous precursor to what many of us fear the sweater intends to do with Ferrari.

 

This was my point.

 

I don't think we can really look so far back here. I think there is a more modern track record that is troubling.

In the end, I guess we will have to see how Sergio Marchionne does as this is the latest phase of the plan. So far I am not encouraged and I am (as previously noted) pretty skeptical he can pull it off. I don't see him as a product focused individual but rather a financial engineer. That can work in the short run, but it won't work for the long run.

 

I wonder why he had to take that position? Wishes from young age?

 

Yes, VW knows what to do with exotic car companies. Lambo quality and reliability is way better now than it was before VW, and the Veyron needs no praise from me. It's without equal.

Cheers,

George

 

So maybe if VW buy Ferrari, car will have better quality and need less service?
... but don't forget about burning Gallardos.

 

Exactly what he is; precisely the concern

 

Over here in Australia there are lots of new Alfas driving around. I would even buy one if I did not need a 7 seater ... FIAT is not doing a lot wrong IMO with the normal saloon cars. Alfa will never be like Mazda and be every second car on the road, and would we want it to be?
Pete

 

The prewar Alfa sales model would have failed in the postwar market.

 

Will Maserati now be allowed to build sports cars to compete with Ferrari?

Will Maserati and Ferrari share engines? Engineering?

How will this affect gas guzzler taxes?

 

There is an interesting interview in this weeks Autocrar with the current President of Maserati. They have some interesting ideas to go forward. My personal experience is they need to improve the product quite a bit but if they can then they have some good ideas.

It seems to me the answers to these questions are:

Will Maserati now be allowed to build sports cars to compete with Ferrari? No way.

Will Maserati and Ferrari share engines? Engineering? Yes for engine engineering- probably no for direct sharing (variants of motors yes but exactly the same motor no)

How will this affect gas guzzler taxes- my guess is Ferrari gets some kind of special treatment and as long as they keep the volume below whatever level it is, they will get the current treatment- they can be above the requirements so long as they show meaningful improvements. I bet with the increased volume if Maserati can hit it, then they get lumped right in with all of FCA.

 

I believe the EU exemption limit is for manufacturers who make < 10,000 units a year.

 

To be more precise

 

Thanks for the facts. So Ferrari will make 9,999 cars

 

And US restrictions?

 

So this will help to protect V12?

 

Chrysler boild dwn to RAM pickups and Jeeps. They have not really had anew car in somehtign like a decade(dart excepted) and I dont see any inspiration there for some knockout products.

In th eennd its all about porduct. So far I acnt think of agreat new car intorducted by segio. True he has developed the current and inherrited product line at Chrysler well, but at some point you need new machines.

The Ghibli, maybe it sells well because of price and some type of brand image. But the new massers are areally uninspired designs, thye drive well but. If a maserati looks like a lexus camry etc as the new ones do, but drives liek a sporty italian car, is that a good long term formula, given the drawbacks.

Frankly I dont think sergio understands product, he does manage peopel well and give frer reign, so maybe good product comes out. So far I dont see anybhtign greta for the long term, its mostly a rehash of existing FCA product.

Ignoring Fiat is not abad idea, cheapo cars not really a plan unless you manufacture somewhere cheap and FCA does not. Premium segments are profitable, so Alfa at the bottom, Masser in the middle and Ferrari as the ultimate inspiration. Its a good plan, but you need product.

 

You are very welcome. As far as Ferrari is made in EU, 9,999 is magical number Pagani is in best position currently, since they build less than 1000 vehicles per year, so they are completely out of CO2 madness.

By current EU legislative, yes! You dont have so much automotive companies in EU that are producing less than 10k vehicles. I assume they see them as rarity anyways, so its not problem from ecological point of view to allow them developing "specific" type of cars (high revving, CO2 throwers, loud, fast).

I am not informed about US restrictions and how they treat small-production automotive factories. Maybe someone could chime in to let us know.

 

Its an interesting focus on EU rules compromising cars, as the larger market is outside of the EU. For example new mercedes with the hateful stop start in the USA where no one cares.

We dont have CO2 rules here, we do have an arcane set of fuel economy regulations. The simple workaround to those is paying a"fine" for each MPG your fleet misses the target. So maybe each new ferrari would carry a 10K extra fee to have an average of say 15 mpg vs the standard of 28.

The fee makes more sense for a manufactuerer like ferrari, because does anybody who owns an exotic for occasional weekend use really care about MPG. Probably worse MPG is better that way it may get 2 fresh tanks of gas per year. So maybe a great non compromised ferrari that carries an irerelevant 10 charge for fuel economy is more desireable than a heavy hybrid or laggy turbo, not to mention the 10K fee pales in comparison to the extra manufacturing cost to reduce co2.

European sensibilities do not necessarily translate here. Turbos are false workaround because while they reduce CO2 in tests in relaity once you dip into the power fuel economy goes out the door as does CO2. Just look at the fuel a Subaru WRX uses when driven in anger vs saya corvette.
In fact for real world fuel economy the american way of bigger NA motors is arguably better, because friction losses in high rev motors are huge.

To me Turbos by the time you get all the plumbing done dont really save weight, and once they boost serious fuel gets burned. So their real adavange is far greater HP for a given engine size and better paper performance spec, against which you deal with throttle response issues.

But who knows maybe with the advent of electric turbos lag will be a thing of the past, and co2/mpg legilation will mean we have lighter cars, which by nature are better handling, maybe ebcause turbo mtors are more low rev the cars will lend themselvs more reasonably to a stick application again.. Still it seems the path to the nirvana of lighter more powerful lag free turbo cars is going to have a genration or two with serious compromises and many wish for NA.

 

My sticker has a huge gas guzzler tax already added. Remember the luxury tax? - not sure if they phased that one out completely yet. The US does not need any more EU influence regarding regulations - just beautiful sports cars.

 

Now comes word that FCA will seek a special dividend of $2.8 billion from Ferrari in connection with the spin.

 

While the exact figure hasn't been know this was suspected from the get go.

Looks like there's little doubt now that this is nothing but Fiat looking to strip assets from Ferrari and casting them loose to fend as best they can.

 

I don't think you can jump to that conclusion yet. No doubt FCA is looking to raise some cash, that's no secret, but this dividend, at about 1x Ferrari's revenue and given that Ferrari had Euro 1.4 billion in cash at the end of 2013, doesn't look like it rises to the level of "stripping."

 

I certainly hope not but regardless of adjective Fiat's primary motivation is the cash.

 

FCA takes the cash on hand, plus use the income stream to pay off old debt and finance new debt... This helps Ferrari how?

I see how it helps FCA in the short run. In the long run this hurts Ferrari.

Hopefully I'm missing something, but I've been around the track enough times and seen this stuff before. Lets look back in 2020... I'd love to be wrong.