[alfa] Re: Re: 24Valve 164 Production Numbers

[George Graves <gmgraves@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

"How could they get it so wrong?" You ask. Well, I don't know about in 
Europe, but I do know about the USA.

First of all. Americans are used to dependable automobiles. Americans 
cars, traditionally, are not very good cars in the dynamic sense, but 
they've always been comfortable on the road (as long as you drive 
slowly), and dependable - I.E. They always can be counted upon to start 
in the morning and get you to work. They have also been generally low 
maintenance (the dependability and low maintenance aspect or US cars is 
applicable for the car's first 100,000 miles, anyway.). The cars could 
be counted upon to not fall apart and to not require major components 
to be replaced - at least for that first 100, 000 miles. And that was 
fine because American cars were always fairly cheap and were replaced 
every three years or so. This has been a fact here since the 1920s, at 
least. Europe is different. Except for some post-war German models, 
European cars have generally been high-maintenance and not very 
reliable. When European cars started to be sold here in great numbers 
after WWII, the ones that were really successful (VW, Mercedes, and to 
a great extent, Porsche) were successful because they were dependable. 
Italian cars never were. Alfas, were bought by enthusiasts who bought 
them because they were a delight to drive. They bought them and they 
put-up with their unreliability and high maintenance for that reason. 
The Rust Debacle of the 1970's pretty much killed-off Italian cars in 
the USA altogether. Lancia left in '78, Fiat in '81 and finally Alfa in 
'95. BUT in Alfa's case it was just a matter of a lingering death. The 
Rust Debacle ruined Alfa's reputation here. Sales plummeted. Some cars 
like the GTV-6 and the Spider did well, but understand that Americans 
never saw Alfa Romeo as a purveyor of sedans. Sure Gulia TIs and Supers 
sold here in small numbers, but Americans saw Alfa Romeo as a mini 
Ferrari, and purveyor of fairly expensive but nonetheless delightful 
small sports cars. With rocky sales, Fiat's Alfa Romeo entered the 
1990s with nothing much to sell here. The highly praised GTV-6 had been 
discontinued and not replaced. The Spider was getting so old that many 
Alfa enthusiasts were on their third one. It was getting increasingly 
difficult for even the most dyed-in-the-wool enthusiast to get up 
enough enthusiasm to buy another one "just like the other one." Then 
came the Mazda Miata (M5 to you Brits). Here was a thoroughly modern 
sports car with pretty much the same performance as an Alfa Spider with 
more room in it than an Alfa, cheaper than an Alfa, and with the 
promise of Japanese build-quality and low maintenance, high-reliability 
driving that the Alfa just couldn't deliver. Then came the 164.

Remember, Alfa enthusiasts buy Alfa Sports cars. The 164 was a sedan. 
Not only a sedan, but a FRONT-WHEEL-DRIVE sedan at that. Add to it the 
fact that it looked like a Peugeot, and you have a classic recipe for 
buyer ennui. It turned out that most Alfisti didn't buy 164s. People 
who did buy them were people who looked at Lexus, Infinity, Peugeot, 
Saab, BMW, and for some reason chose the Alfa. Unprepared for the high 
maintenance costs and high frequency of repair, these people soon 
became very disenchanted with an aspect of Alfas, that we Alfisti had 
long ago come to grips with as the price we pay for having so much fun 
behind the wheel.

So, in short, Alfa Romeo entered the middle of the last decade in the 
US market with essentially no products to sell. The word  was out on 
the 164. It was not a "Consumer Reports" high-reliability car and not 
enough people were interested in buying an almost 30-year old spider 
design. The result? Alfa sold less than 500 cars in all of North 
America (including Canada) in it's last year here. I have no doubt that 
if Alfa had held on for two more years the introduction of the current 
Spider (especially with the V-6) the new GTV and the 156 would have 
turned Alfa's prospects around in this country, People would have 
bought the 156 for it's looks alone (especially the lovely estate 
wagon). Alfisti would have traded-in their old spiders and GTV-6s for 
the new Spider and GTV in droves. Alfa would not have been able to 
keep-up with demand for a while.

Just my take on events, but I think the reasoning's sound.

Cuss and Discuss as they say?


George Graves
'86 GTV-6 3.0 named 'Sophia'






On Sep 3, 2004, at 2:11 PM, alfa-digest wrote:


> Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 07:44:48 +0100
> From: "Tim Hancock" <timhancock@domain.elided>
> Subject: [alfa] Re: 24Valve 164 Production Numbers
>
> <The production of the 164 with the 24V drivetrain was 13,378 units, 
> of which
> 6,138 in the Super model (this is the european "LS", or if anyone 
> cares to
> elaborate), 863 USA models (I think this includes Canada), plus 206 Q4
> models>
>
> Its one thing to own a 'rare' model, but the bald and uncomfortable 
> truth is
> that in terms of the investment made into the facelifted range, the 
> sales
> figures are an unmitigated disaster. Overall 164 production was about 
> 250,000
> with the TS models being predictably the best sellers,so the 24 
> valvers make a
> comparatively poor contribution to this figure.
>
> Apart from it being a shame, it poses the question of how could they 
> get it so
> wrong, given that the cars are nice cars . I also ask myself what 
> possessed
> Alfa to try again with the 166 which really offered the 'same again' 
> recipe so
> closely. The sales figures for 166 are so small they are hardly worth
> mentioning. A good car, but not good enough, and nowhere near as 
> reliable as
> the 164 was if my spies are correct.
>
> Peugeot are another company that keeps trying to make 'big' cars and 
> keeps
> failing. Only Lexus seems to have scaled the BMW/Merc/Audi stronghold 
> and they
> did it by attacking the big car market from the top with quality and 
> customer
> care as their weapons as the cars are dynamically indifferent. All 
> others have
> quality or service issues which don't wash in this market sector, and 
> that is
> the nub of the issue as ever with Alfa.
>
> Finally I must of course say this is a European observation as US 
> vehicles are
> rare here.
>
>
> Tim Hancock  Boston UK
>
> 164TS
> 164Super
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