Alfa Sales taking a Nosedive

[Alfa166]

Anyone know why Alfa sales in Australia are taking a nose-dive. Figures show only the GT has increased number of sales from last year.

[alfagtv58]

What's your source?

[Alfa166]

Vfacts

http://www.autonews.net.au/static/vfacts/main.html

[Alfa166]

Probably the kind of sites the makers don't want us to see.

[alfagtv58]

Hmmm well the figures don't lie, but I guess with the 156 and 166 no longer available (and sales would have been pretty good on these in '07 due to run out pricing) and the Brera is probably down due to an initial rush on them when they hit the market cos it had some very good press on the design. Other than that I have no answers!!

Pretty interesting stuff overall though.  Amazing that Toyota (zzzzzz, sorry dozed off there) has that much market share.

[Joe Garra]

My theory is that they haven't had a new model for a while. The 147 has been around a while. The 159 2 years. Spider and Brera aren't exactly cheap, and there is no 166 replacement.

[Pete Y]

Or perhaps, just to be novel...

It' s just not a great product? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the way the 159 looks. But to drive, I'd still take a RWD E90 or new C-Class.

And the buyers in that market want badge value, which brings with it bragging, and solid residual values. Alfa doesn't have anywhere near the cachet of BMW, MB or Audi - and the depreciation shows it. Especially when these buyers are going to be on novated leases a lot of the time, I think the fuel consumption and the residuals probably add up to bad decision.

[Alfa166]

My Answer to it is they have their prices completely wrong in this country along with their perceived product placement in the market. The market is always the best indicator of where you stand and obviously the market has told us that Alfa is not where we think it is. As sales in other RHD countries are actually pretty good. Alfa is not a competitor for BMW or Merc or Audi it is more of a competitor for VW / Peugeot / Renault and even Honda and Mazda. Brera and Spider are overpriced with the amount of performance you get compared to competitors.

Alfa are overpriced to start with when they drop prices the residuals plummet. I think the increased sales in GT is because it is much better value for money than the Brera. Whatever happens something needs to change.

[Pete Y]

I would agree with the above. I think in the public viewpoint, they are probably at the VW/Citroen/Peugeot/Renault sort of level. Having them leave for 7 years didn't really help their cause either, when they left they had been sprouting mediocre product for a while, while they were away they sprouted more mediocre product (145/146/155) which didn't really get people here all that interested, but then re-entered the market with the GTV and Spider in '99 which were VERY keenly priced. I mean, you could get change from $40K if you bought a Spider - no wonder it did so well.

Now they want to ask over 90K for a V6 Brera, with a Holden block and a weight which gives only mediocre performance, handling and most importantly in the days of 1.80 PULP, fuel economy. If you want a small, V6, AWD performance coupe, you'd buy a TT 3.2 - which along with the 350Z, BMW E92, RX8 make more compelling arguments.