Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne wants to transfer the glamour of Italian luxury clothes to its Maserati and Alfa Romeo brands by benefitting from the “Made in Italy” tag. The two brands are currently in the middle of a reinventing process, with Fiat aiming to capitalize on Italian manufacturing to promote new vehicles like the Maserati Ghibli and Alfa Romeo 4C.
“There is not a doubt in my mind that the origin of production is important to Maserati. I also think it’s important for Alfa,” Marchionne told Financial Times. “We will never build outside Italy. We are at a very different stage of evolution. It may well be the next CEO that makes that call. But it’s not me,” Marchionne added.
A central part in Fiat’s plan is played by the Mirafiori plant in Turin, in which the carmaker has invested up to €1 billion ($1.33 billion) to retool it for premium car manufacturing. All the plant’s 5,000 employees have been kept in order to build new models like the Maserati Levante SUV (previously known as the Kubang), due in 2015. Maserati hopes that new products will boost its annual sales to 70,000 units in the long term, ten times more than what it sells today.
“The brief is to develop a limited set of products. I don’t think you will ever see from a sedan standpoint Maserati make a car smaller than the Ghibli,” Marchionne said, adding that the brand needs to continue to play in the larger segments and remain an exclusive brand.
In that respect, the SUV will be very important for Maserati. “We’re beginning to finalize the surfaces of the car now. It starts making the body in the third quarter of 2014 and the idea is to enter the market in the second quarter of 2015,” Marchionne said about the Levante. Alongside the SUV, Mirafiori will also built another new model, which is yet unknown. However, since it will be built in the same plant as the Levante, it could be the rumored compact SUV.
By Dan Mihalascu
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