70 replies to this topic

[Sudsbouy]

If I recall correctly, General Motors has purchased a 20% share of Fiat. In addition, I believe there's an option to purchase a majority share. Is this true? If so, would it give them control of Ferrari? Does anyone have an opinion on this?

Thank you.

[MrAerodynamicist]

Well if X is the % of Fiat owned by GM and Y is the % of Ferrari owned by Fiat then GM would own X*Y% of Ferrari.

Anybody know the values for X & Y?

[FordFan]

I'm pretty sure the share purchace explicitly excluded Ferrari and a couple of other prestigious car brands. There has been talk of GM taking a larger share of Fiat in the future, though.

[Max Torque]

I haven't heard anything about Ferrari being excluded from the deal. But anyway, I don't think that it will matter much to Ferrari. It's to everyone's interest to let Ferrari go on as it is.

[smarty]

X=20 and Y=0 I suppose, since there may be a parent company who owns both Fiat and Ferrari.

The deal covers Alfa Romeo and Lancia brands but does not include Ferrari and Maserati.

[Damop]

There is a rumour that GM will bring over Alfas to sell alongside Saabs in North America. If that is a true, then hopefully it will include the GTV!!!!

[Max Torque]

Damop, you mean that Alfa isn't exported in North America???!!!!

Wow. What the hell is going on in the world??!!!

[smarty]

It's not a rumour, it's in the plans. Check the link

http://www.usatoday....os/mauto678.htm

[pa]

If the GM/Ferrari scuttlebutt is true, Ferrari will become just another boring, expensive North American car racing on ovals. Enzo will rise from the dead and gouge out the eyes of the entire Fiat and GM board of directors.

[Max Torque]

Wake up Pa.
In ten years time, every car company in the world will be, one way or another, owned by Ford, GM, or DaimlerChrysler.

It's inevitable.

[Megatron]

Alfa Romeo was discontinued by FIAT in North America around 1994 due to low sales.

I hope they come back, personally.

GM is a company that is slowly but surely changing for the better as far as racing goes. I don't think it will be Ferrari, but I do think they will have thier own team and engine running around 2005.

[Max Torque]

Come to think about it, GM is Ferrari's best hope.
If they end up a subsidary of Ford, or DaimlerChrysler, Ferrari will be playing Rubens to Jaguar's or McLaren's Schumacher from then on...

[Damop]

Alfa's woes extended beyond poor sales - they established a reputation over here as being tempermental and unreliable. The Milano was also one damn ugly car, even though it was enjoyable to drive. The 164 did little to reverse the tide when it replaced the Milano, and the aging Spyder was outclassed by the Miata. Alfa faded into obscurity in North America in 1994, as Megatron said. I think Alfa have enough exciting new designs and have been gone long enough that GM could slide them back into NA with some clever marketing (something better than that weak "Cadillac that zags" crap anyway).

[Max Torque]

The Miata is the MX-5, got that one.
What the heck was the Milano?? (Can somebody explain it to me in european, please?!)

[Pascal]

General Motors bought 20% of the Fiat Automobili division from the FIAT Group, which owns Ferrari separately. In return, the FIAT Group gets a 5% participation in GM. The Prancing Horse is therefore not included in the deal.

As you can see, Ferrari is not about to become a GM subsidiary anytime soon. The same goes for the Maserati brand, which is directly the property of Ferrari.

[Damop]

Max - I believe the Milano was known as the 75 in Europe. Funny looking thing, a blast to drive, - if you could keep it on the road. A friend of mine owned one - he said it was like being in love with a tempermental woman who had an ugly face but who was great in the sack. He didn't date much - go figure.

[Max Torque]

Oh! The 75. Yeah. Very popular around these places though.
Guess we have completely different tastes than you Americans!

[Max Torque]

Pascal, Do you think that a company like Ferrari can survive on it's own in this day and age? What with having to deal with the extreme costs of running an F1 top team to boot?

Geez. If Ferrari is left on it's own, it will know some hard times I think...

[Damop]

Max - I always liked the look of the Milano - quirky and different. My friend had the Milano Verde with the 3.0 L engine - very quick car. The de Dion suspension left us scratching our heads - it was an archaic suspension design but it seemed to work OK. I think the thing is, in the U.S. (and to a lesser extent Canada) people by from the Big 3 out of loyalty, family training, etc. The people with the free will to purchase any car they wanted were also unwilling to put up with a vehicle that was very unreliable compared to its competition, coupled with a dealer network that was more sparse and ill-tempered than Villeneuve's hair. My friend was always fixing the damn thing.

OT: I never understood Canadians and their concept of "domestic" versus "foreign". My girlfriend's Civic hatchback is a domestic car (built in Ontario), my boss' Bonneville is a foreign car (built in US) - yet he refers to his car as a domestic and hers as foreign - he doesn't seem to get it when I tease him he has it backward. Oh well.

Hopefully Alfa have fixed the bugs - I really want a new GTV!

[arcwulf7]

If you look into the shareholder groups and funds that control the major auto makers now you'll see vast cross ownerships exist now. Companies coalesce around specific identities but there is little difference between a pension fund owning a company or another company owning it, if its viewed soley as an investment. Auto companies do tend to put an imprint on car compaies they buy for economies of scale or market. Saab has produced much less idiosyncratic cars since 50% of it was taken over by GM. Jaguar, though, recieved a huge technological, managerial and financial boost when it was taken over by Ford while retaining its unique character. I doubt GM ownership of FIAT would have much effect. But as Pascal noted Ferrari may not be part of the ownership arrangement. In any case this might even have a positive effect on Ferrari-- More the Jaguar than the Saab effect i think would apply if any at all.[p][Edited by arcwulf7 on 08-24-2000]

[Max Torque]

I know about all that "support the domestic companies" stuff that's going on in the states. Can't say I blame them. I guess their cars suit their needs better than the european and japanese, which suit Europe better...

But what I can't believe is that an American (or Canadian) has no way of buying an Alfa Spyder if he wants it! I mean c'mon! Here in Europe for example there aren't many Dodge Vipers in the streets but, heck, if you want to buy one, you can!

[arcwulf7]

You can't find Peugeot, Renault, Citroen, Alpa Romeo, British labels like Stirling, Fiat, Opel and a number of others. All the moderately priced brands left in the last couple of decades or so. Jaguars, LandRover, BMW's, Mercedes, Audis are all you really see in North America now of European cars- pretige makes and a few exotics. If you're looking for a nifty European Roadster at a relatively reasonable price you can forget it. The Japanese and Koreans are here in droves though. Alpha Spyder, you might have to try a Honda S2000. Nice car, but not the same cachet. I'm a bit surprised American boats like the Cadillac STS (or muscle car like the Viper) would sell in Europe, but GM's entry a Le Mans was aimed directly at marketing it there. Go figure!?

[Max Torque]

I had a sneaking suspicion that some of these brands wouldn't be available there as I see none in films and serials (great refference, huh?!), but you are talking about the majority of the european market there. Wow.
I Guess when an american F1 fan hears about the "car giant Renault" re-entering the sport, he goes: Who? :lol:

[arcwulf7]

He thinks of the Renault 5, or the Alliance which were sold in NA in mid 80's. They probably had about .3% of the market He might recognize the name Renault-- but GIANT ?????!!

VW is the one remaing moderately priced European car in NA. The only car on the continent also that sells more standard transmissions than automatic. A last flag for Europe in middle America and Canada. A loyal but fairly limited market.[p][Edited by arcwulf7 on 08-24-2000]

[Max Torque]

To tell you the truth, I love the Viper. It's on my top10 list of cars I would like to buy. The only problem would be that 8-litre engine. Here in Greece tax goes according to engine size. A 3-litre car is almost too much to keep. 8litre? You can Imagine...

[Damop]

No, Canadians think of cars like Le Car, Medallion, Fuego, and Premier! All of the dismally unreliable cars. The Europen fallout of Renault, Puegeot, Alfa, etc. had nothing to do with a lack of itnerest in fun European cars. It's just that the cars that were imported here were incredibly unreliable and people lost patience and interest in them. These companies have no one to blame but themselves. Don't forget that in the 70's and 80's North American safety and particularly emissions requirements were much more stringent than European regs - these companies simply didn't invest sufficent engineering efforts to find solutions that in their short-sighted manner they couldn't see coming on their home turf anyway. They must look at the North American market pretty hungrily - there is a hell of a lot of money shipped around for more expensive (and therefore more profitable) European brands.

[Damop]

Oh yeah, forgot about the Alliance and its friend the Encore - shudder those were bad cars.

[Max Torque]

Alliance and Encore. Again names that don't tell me nothing.
I agree that american cars are far more reliable and have a far better value for money quality. They don't dominate Europe though because they are far bigger both in size and specs for the european needs.

Has anyone notice how far offtopic this thread has gone?

[arcwulf7]

They rebadged the European cars in names they thought would sell here. Actually the European cars of that time were probably no worse than the Americans. But the Americans had the franchise and held it. The Japanese came in with this tremendous reputation for quality and value and more or less displaced the Europeans. Probably American and European cars are much better than they were in the 70's and 80's but the damage had been done.-- and they still sell Ferraris here (back on topic)

[Todd]

The Renault 9 was sold in the US as the Alliance. The Encore was a Renault 11.

[Damop]

Max - depends what you call value. By the pound American cars are probably a value, but so is chopped liver, and they suck if you are looking for something that you actually want to DRIVE!!! Even the most decent American cars are too softly sprung and underdamped with poor body control. Or there is the GM idea of a "touring" model - put in rock hard springs and shocks with no travel so that the impact harshness is severe. No thanks, give me an agile car any day, and with a stickshift goddam you GM!!!

The problem is that the perception of what sells in the US means even VWs are softly sprung. The really gross side effect of all this is that the Canadian market is only 1/10 the size of the US market, so what goes there goes here. Hence no manual trannies on a lot of cars, even though more Canadians drive stick than in the US. To take this even further off-topic, I was looking at an S40 the other day at the Volvo dealer - I asked when the stick was coming out, he said not for at least three years. I said that's too bad. When asked if I would buy an automatic, I told him no. He made note of it. Apparently 5 out of the last 10 people he had come into the showroom had said basically the same thing - he figures that people took the car right off their list on the spot (which I did) and he was planning to fire a letter to Volvo Canada telling them to ship some sticks!!!

I don't think it is off-topic at all - I think the underlying theme here is that GM doesn't understand motorsports outside of NASCAR.

[Max Torque]

At least Mercedes keeps it's model names the same in both sides of the Atlantic. I think they are the only ones...
Hmmm... No. The Honda have the same names as well, but that's about all I guess.

[Damop]

BTW, names that would sell - the Fuego was a bust because it sounded like "Faggo".

[Damop]

Uh, Max, that's not true either - ever hear of the Acura Integra? The Acura NSX? The Acura Legend? And so forth...

BMW keeps it's names the same, as does VW, Audi, Land Rover, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Aston Martin, Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari...

[Max Torque]

That thing about automatics is another thing that I don't understand about Americans. I've never driven an AT car but I really can't understand what would make a whole nation (the leading nation in this category as well) favor so much the automatic tranmission. Maybe I should try one and see what I'm missing. If I can find one around here that is!

[Max Torque]

I don't know about BMW...
Do you call them series 3, 5, etc.?
We have the 320i, the 528i, etc.
Does it go like that there?

[Damop]

Why Americans love slushboxes.

First, it's hard to shift gears and load the next clip into your handgun while trying to shift. Second, it's a lack of coordination. Third, it's the dream to do the least amount of movement in a single day as possible. Fourth, it's the fact that the majority of roads in major cities are parking lots. Fifth, it's hard to flip off someone while shifting. Sixth, did I mention guns?

[Todd]

What do you think we call them?

[Damop]

Yep - we call them 3-series, etc. with the 330i, 330Ci, etc. Same for the 5- and 7-series. We also have the Z-series and M-series here too.

[Damop]

Todd - given some of the bad names we have thrown at him today, maybe BMW Munich for the 3-series, the BMW Panzer for the 7-series, etc....

[Max Torque]

:lol:
Yes. I thought you people didn't like cars that have numbers as the model name!!! Sorry :lol:

[Todd]

Originally posted by Damop
Why Americans love slushboxes.

First, it's hard to shift gears and load the next clip into your handgun while trying to shift. Second, it's a lack of coordination. Third, it's the dream to do the least amount of movement in a single day as possible. Fourth, it's the fact that the majority of roads in major cities are parking lots. Fifth, it's hard to flip off someone while shifting. Sixth, did I mention guns?

I have never let the 5 speed in my car keep me from giving someone the finger, getting dressed on the way to work, or much of anything else. My friend who shoots at people from his car has a 5 speed manual too.

Automatics took control of the US market in the early '50s. Manuals were difficult to use and joy-less at the time. US manufacturers had no problems developing amounts of power and torque that European manufacturers couldn't match with the outputs from 3 of their volume models combined, so there was no reason not to trade some performance for the convenience of an automatic over a clunky non-syncro manual. Besides, gasoline was free. If the manual had been perfected before the torque-converter and banded planetary gearset, then we might have gone the route Europe did. But it wasn't and we didn't.

[Damop]

Gosh Todd, your explanation is sterile and humourless.;)

Yeah it hasn't kept me from eating, taking conference calls on my cell, and navigating stop-and-go traffic. I just wonder if it is less dangerous to drive drunks than multi-task while driving.

[Damop]

Max - some companies have gone the other way - Acura now uses alph-numeric model numbers instead of names because people were saying "I own a Legend" or "I own an Integra" instead of "I own an Acura".

GM is the worst for names though - Lumina? Camaro? Eldorado ETC (which extended is Eldorado Eldorado Touring Coupe) - which is also how Seville STS goes. Then you have those really dumbass SUV names instead of calling them Boat, Bigger Boat, Biggest Boat....

[Max Torque]

Well, life seems so much more exciting over there!!!
Say, I once heard about a car (Cadillac was it?) called the Newyorker. Man, let me tell you that's a lame name. Do you have a Californian?

[Todd]

Chrysler made the NewYorker. Ferrari sold the 250GT California Spider.

[Max Torque]

If I understand correctly Acura is "expensive Honda cars" in american?
Like the Lexus is the expensive Toyotas? (We actually have the Lexus brand here as well, but the Japanese don't. They call that new Lexus a Toyota Altezza).

[Todd]

Yep. Ininiti is overpriced Nissan too. Mazda was going to launch their chintz cars as Amatis, but they decided to have financial problems instead.

[Max Torque]

In my neighbourhood there is a Honda Acura. It looks like the Integra. I guess it's a mutant.

[Damop]

Todd - decided to have financial problems instead That's good! I can almost hear that decision coming out of a board meeting. The sad thing about over-priced Nissan is that people will pay 30 percent more for a chrome grill and some fake wood on a Maxima or Pathfinder. And I really find it amusing that Lexus has the gall to charge an extra 50 percent for a jazzed up Camry.

Acura's symbol is the stylized A - which also looks like calipers. Of course, there are much more accurate measurement devices, but I have a feeling that the "A - calipers" thing is lost on most people.