Originally Posted by Picard
Back when I was a kid in the 1960s, Alfa was treated with the sort of reverence that now gets lavished on the likes of Ferrari.
<snip>
Alfas were stylish, beautifully engineered and expensive - they didn't sell in big numbers in the UK, but the people who bought them were nearly all mad-keen enthusiasts.
whereas today....?
Still not sure about the engineering though, to be honest.
Originally Posted by Picard
For the Trotskyite lineworkers, screwing Suds together took a back seat to fermenting plans for international revolution (over a three-course pasta lunch, naturally). Indeed, the plant's famously terrible build quality suggested the car itself might have been a pre-emptive strike on the fabric of the capitalist system.
But the workers couldn't be blamed for the 'Sud's biggest failing: the fact it was constructed from low-grade steel bought cheaply from (appropriately enough) the Soviet Union.
These two issues are probably not a coincidence. Of course the smart observer, not happy to re-cycle tired old cliches, will notice that the poor industrial relations were another consequence of the tight-fisted attitude of the management.
Originally Posted by Picard
Alfa's biggest problem, I reckon, is the over-optimistic pricing that's been stuck to the corporate line-up for years. Put simply, Alfa isn't a premium brand.
Originally Posted by Picard
The simple fact that, in the minds of the British car-buying public, Alfa has never been able to get away from the reputation earned for it by its shonky 'seventies and 'eighties products, of which the 'Sud's tendency to extreme rot was the worst example.
It's strange when you consider how quickly Skoda has been able to turn around its reputation - from joke brand to major player in under ten years.
Partly by undercutting the competition maybe, but more importantly, by delivering reliable cars!!!! Skoda cars have consistently appeared at/near the top of the JD Power survey.