Re: Lancia´s news from 2006

The Lancia will appeal to a different market than Alfa, I hope. Remember, the Lancia will be modern and forward looking while the Alfas will be more retro, aggressive and, er, not really well built.

I have appended a product plan I´ve drawn up. In my market plan the Fulvia is a compact but high quality car, just seating two. It´s a hardtop and will be viewed as a kind of light grand tourer. This is marketing piffle but the idea is that the possible owner imagines the car will take him or her around Europe with the glamourous partner for three or four day trips. The car will be nimble around town and competent and pleasurable on the open road. The USP might be that it has a turbo-charged, small capacity V6.

The rallying matter raises a vexed question about speed. I think you are right to look at motorsports as a means to raise the company´s profile. I would propose something like the Paris-Dakar where durability is the key. I´d leave rallying to Alfa where speed matters more (correct me if I´m wrong - I know nothing about motor sports).

You´ll notice I´ve deprived Fiat of its laughable Croma and badge-engineered "off roader." Alfa has lost the 166-sized car. Nobody liked them (except me and goatboy) so that leaves large saloons to Lancia. Think of Lancia as an Italian Audi but comfortable and not desperately boring.

I really ought to make it clear that the smallest Lancias, the estate and saloon will all cost more than the Alfa. I might even be persuaded to drop the c-class saloon.

Re: Lancia´s news from 2006

Wasn´t there a successfully raleighed Alfa 155 back in the 90s? Well, fair enough, put Alfa back on the circuit if that´s where they are happiest. As I said I know less than zero about motor sports. If Paris-Dakar isn´t an option then any long distance endurance race would be the kind of thing Lancia could compete in.

Lancia now has a very unclear personality. My aim was to focus it by keeping their products distinct from Alfa and Fiats. But, yes, it is only theory. But I would hope it was a better theory than the current Lancia one where they have one supermini, one five door hatch and two bodge engineeered MPVs and a heavy dose of retro which compels them to sell to disenfranchised Rover customers or their equivalent. I´d be interested to see alternative models that allow Lancia to exist without cannibalising sales from Fiat and Alfa Romeo.

Re: Lancia´s news from 2006

Overlapping product ranges drive me nuts. I think I am a borderline Asperger´s case. VW is quite content with their overlap but I think it´s annoying and VW would definitely have made more money if they didn´t waste so much effort on making nonsense like the Phaeton. Seat is obviously a brand too far: a load of sporty hatches styled like a whipped ice cream. No thanks. [Mild digression: did I read correctly that the Scirocco is not selling well?] For a marginal company like Lancia, having to invest in a small car to sell in a similar price level to Grande Puntos and MiTos would not achieve a) great sales and b) not achieve the goal of telling customers that Lancia is grown up. Small and expensive don´t work as the excellent Audi A2 showed. So, I really feel Lancia´s range should not have anything smaller than a Focus-sized wagon in 3 or 5 door size. This avoids competion with Alfa who sell sporty mid-sized hatches in that sector, or competing with Fiat with their ugly, cheap and windowless Bravo aimed at the price-conscious/blindfold-wearing market.

I could concede that Alfa might sell a sporty hatchback coupe but only so long as it was cheaper than a similarly sized Lancia which would be a strict two-door. The Brera I would discontinue.

Re: Lancia´s news from 2006

The Brera must go. It´s malproportioned and does nothing better than the lovely little GT.

Let´s test the product plan....

I am a fellow in need of a car. If I want something like a VW Golf but with sporting pretensions, the dealer shows me the Alfa 148 in 3 or 5 door guise. If I have a family or I am a business chap/chappette, then I am showed the Lancia Fulvia 3 door and 5 door "shooting brake" (excuse me while I hide my smirk). "But," I say, "I can´t afford the insurance on the Alfa and the Lancias are a bit too big and they only have five cylinder engines..." Well, the man trundles me over to the Fiat dealer where a pile of unsold Bravos await me.

If I need a saloon sized and priced similarly to a low-spec BMW 3 series, then I am pointed at the Alfa 158 sport saloon.  If I decide that I want a sports car for the same money, I am am shown the Lancia Fulvia coupe. The Alfa targets the BMW 3 and the Fulvia targets the Audi TT and 3-series coupes. 

If I want a car sized like an Audi A6 but cheaper and nicer inside, the salesperson takes me by the elbow and shows me the Lancia Flaminia. If I want a sportier version, I can be sold the Sport Pack. It´s very discrete. If I want more space, for the same money I can have the MPV Phaedra.

Let´s say I want something to compete with the A5 or Mercedes CLK. Then the man shows me the Lancia Florida coupe (two doors, room for 4). If that´s too plush, I am shown the 2 seater GTV or its convertible friend which cost more than the Fulvia but less the the Florida. So, 4 seats equals Lancia, two for the Alfa.

At each step of the way I am forced to choose between price, format and size. Lancia and Alfa will always have one thing the other doesn´t and so customers differentiate themselves accordingly. It´s a brilliant, brilliant plan with no visible flaws of any kind.

The gist is that as you go up the ladder of price and size, each brand has a model of a different type so one type never competes with the same type in another brand. It´s saloon versus coupe, wagon versus hatch, and at the top, saloon and MPV compliment one another for Lancia. If the MPV was more S-Max like you could even nix the saloon altogether and still avoid cross-brand competition.  

Re: Lancia´s news from 2006

I mentioned to goatboy a posting from March 23. I finally found it so here it is again:

"Lancia and Citroen people are probably drawn to these companies because they were both strongly moulded by their founders´ singular vision. I´d add Saab to this group, though their output has been much smaller.

The French and Italian marques produced technically advanced products with designs to match. I´m thinking here of the Aurelia and Flaminia, the 2CV and the DS (and not the Lancia Musa or Citroen ZX.)

Lancia´s story is a little sadder then Citroen´s, I think. Fiat were even less enthusiastic about and nurturing of their charge than Peugeot were of theirs.

The last wilfully odd Citroen was the 1988 XM (and I think this is a debatable point, some say it was the BX) while from the late 70s Lancias were more and more Fiat-ised. The Thema shared too much with Saab´s 9000 and Fiat´s Croma to be its own car. Try as I might, I can´t find a warm place for it in my heart. The interiors are coal black and bland. The exterior was banal. (Funnily, I quite like the Dedra though). The Kappa was a much better effort mechanically but the exterior styling was simply far too plain. Only the coupe relieved the dullness but there weren´t enough "Lancia guys" to buy it. The exception to the trend of Lancia´s decline is/was the Thesis which was/is a car built to a sterling standard, which nodded to all Lancia's values and looked unique. It even had/has its own platform while the XM had to share with the Peugeot 604. The Ypsilon definitely lives up to Lancia´s interior qualities. And finally, I´ve seen the new Delta in real life and I think it looks lush and really special. This can´t be said of Citroen´s present range, with the exception of the C6. Sort of.

If I think about it, you could say that in both cases it took about 15 years for the parent companies to kill off the culture of the firms of which they grabbed control. That would be the time it would take for a middle-ranking decision maker (with ten years inculcation in company culture) in their 40s to reach retirement.

What both companies have in common is having experienced a watering-down of the interesting but unprofitable qualities that made them special. For me a Lancia is about finely engineeered interfaces, romantic Italian styling and subtle refinement. A Citroen is about cosseting ride quality, innovative exterior and interior design and quick steering. Lancia aspires to an ideal classicism of the refined touring saloon or GT while Citroen aspires to an individualism and a certain modernity (with a capital M).

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