Alfa Romeo Sales Figures Us
It's no secret that Alfa Romeo is making some great cars right now, the Giulia and the Stelvio are both class-leading in terms of style, character, engine and chassis. For the enthusiast, there really is no better choice.
Unfortunately, capability is not the only thing that sells a car — reputation is another important factor. For years, Alfa was synonymous with cars that were better than anything else to drive... briefly, with the poor build quality, rust, and crummy electrics being the main issues. Purists can look past this and see a car for what it can be on a good day, but we are few and far between.
Alfa has addressed these issues from the late '80s onwards. The 164 was a marked step up in quality from the old 75 and actually set some industry standards for testing cars in the development phase. This trend has continued on as Alfa has been offering 5-year warranties on their cars for years now and actually have fewer recalls on reliability issues than most other big-league European manufacturers. It also seems that any problems that do creep up on the Giulia and Stelvio are quite trivial.
So, whilst Alfa seem to have the quality issues firmly addressed now, there is one other gleaming problem they cannot seem to sort out so easily.... price.
The Numbers Game
The problem with making high-end sports cars like the Giulia and Stelvio is that they command a high price-tag (the Giulia starts at £33,200 or $39,400 and the Stelvio is even more), whilst competitive with most rival brands, this is not the price range which most people actually shop in.
Because of the price of these exclusive machines, Alfa Romeo sales were down to just 54,365 for the whole of Europe in 2019, that's down from 131,385 in 2011 and over 200,000 in 2001. What made these more successful times for Alfa? The small affordable car of course.
The B (supermini) and C (compact) segments are crucial to a carmakers success across the globe. Realistically, most of us only afford a small hatchback, which is why in Europe the small family (C) car outsells the small executive and executive cars about 3 to 1. Alfa Romeo have made many great small cars in the past which have always contributed to a massive sales hike for the company, starting with the revolutionary Alfasud. Moving onto the later years, with the launch of the beautiful Giulietta in 2010 (this was the cause of the fantastic 2011 sales). Sometimes, Alfa has even surprised themselves in the small car segment, the 147 from the turn of the millennium, paired with its heavily discounted D-segment brother the 156 (priced some £4000 or $5500 cheaper than an equivalent E36 3-Series) helped Alfa to shift around 200,000 units per year from 98-03.
Tonale Or Not Tonale
The upcoming Tonale looks like a very sharp vehicle indeed and is rumored to save costs by using a platform from new part-parent company PSA (now Stellantis), who also own Peugeot. Whilst this may well be cheaper than its bigger brother the Stelvio, with expensive plug-in hybrid technology, make no mistake, this will not be a bargain car for the masses.
The Tonale can certainly not be the replacement for the outgoing Giulietta, on top of just being... well huge in comparison, the SUV segment is starting to come under fire from environmentalist groups. This is because they are bigger, heavier, and more pollutant than their smaller siblings for seemingly no gain. There are some SUVs that come with 7 seats but they are few and far between. So really, the extra real estate of an SUV does not serve a rational enough purpose to compensate for the additional environmental damage it causes. Because of this, it is likely the Tonale will not help Alfa Romeo's current sales record, as it's entirely possible that the SUV segment will soon be outlawed like the formally so popular and "green" diesel car.
What We Need
The fact is, whilst there may be a little less profit involved, small cars simply sell better, especially in Europe, Alfa Romeo sales figures were nearly 3 times better when the 2010 Giulietta was fresh than they are now, so what's the answer? Easy, make a new Giulietta.
It doesn't have to copy the current formula exactly, in actual fact, there is a very popular concept idea that has been circling the Alfisti community since the launch of the Giulia in 2016: use the Giorgio platform. The Giorgio platform is the all-conquering RWD chassis created for and used in the awesome Giulia and, with the conversion to FWD for the new 1-series BMW would give Alfa the unique selling point of being the only RWD hatchback. Combining this fantastic chassis with their newfound levels of build quality and their eternal reputation for making the greatest engines around and all of a sudden, Alfa would have a car that pushes the competition into irrelevance. If that wouldn't cause sales to skyrocket, then what would?
Sources: carsalesbase, alfaromeousa, alfaromeo.co.uk, parkers, wikipedia
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About The Author 
Sammy James Moon (29 Articles Published)
Sammy James Moon is a mechanical engineer and writer and content manager based in the south west of England. He is Currently working in as a content manager for the Land Rover parts specialist LR Direct whilst writing for HotCars and studying web design. A lover of all things autuomotive with a particular passion for Italian cars and modern classics. Trained in ICT, Mechanical Engineering and CAD design engineering through Budehaven Sixth Form and Exeter College
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Source: https://www.hotcars.com/heres-what-alfa-romeo-needs-to-be-successful/
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