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Zitat von Maurizio Consalvo
Dear Alfisti,
I’m really glad that I can finally dedicate myself to you, opening this new and fundamental communication channel to share some of the most important issues about the aspects as far as the products are concerned.
I’m pleased to start this new experience with you, because since I started my professional career I have always been admiring the world of the “Alfisti” with its fans all over the world, who are not only experienced but also experts as far as the products are concerned or sometimes just fans of Italian cars.
Let’s talk about passion and let me tell you something about my role in the company. Apart from the organisational part my role in our team is a dream for a car fan come true: we’re working on the proposals as far as the future range and the development of the cars for the market are concerned.
It’s a challenging and pleasant role, difficult but also rewarding. Although it’s still pretty different from what it might seem from the outside.
When I was a young boy, reading Quattroruote (one of the most important car magazines in Italy) I dreamt of being able to decide which engines to develop, what kind of content to put in a car and foremost how far the speedometer should reach.
In reality the product is the main business lever in a company like ours, so apart from a lot of passion, you also need lots of rationality to deal with product development; you need to consider many complex aspects, especially when you think about the latest economic crisis on markets all over the world .
Here for us at Alfa Romeo the aspects of business sustainability are the most important ones, guaranteeing to invest the shareholders’ money in profitable initiatives. The first task is to understand in which direction the market is moving. In the past the competition’s evolution was slow and predictable; today it’s much faster and changes happen on a global scale and you can’t just think of Italy and Europe anymore.
Very often technological innovation is the ‘weapon’, which allows us to get onto the market with the right product at the right time.
For example the Multiair, which had its debut with the MiTo last September; this fundamental technology has been developed thanks to tenacity, professional capacity and far-sightedness of a team of people who believed in the importance of excellent performance and emission control, driving pleasure and consumption control.
Another important aspect is to know who the customers really are, how much they are willing to spend and what kind of content or performance they want.
Here we need to talk about the brand’s value, the heritage, its unique characteristics, which are the reasons for the clients to buy the product.
The positive aspect: we know what we want to achieve!
Unmistakable style, road holding, driving pleasure, control of the car under all conditions, brilliant performance – these are the values, which have always characterised the brand.
The negative aspect: the bar is set higher and higher! It’s getting more and more difficult to satisfy everybody – from the young fans to the traditional enthusiasts.
When Alfa Romeo introduced the Giulietta in the 1950s there was no other car with the same characteristics on the market. It wasn’t about the price tag, but if you wanted to buy a saloon for your family with a sporty performance you had to come to Alfa Romeo! No other car was fitted with a double camshaft in aluminium or offered the Giulietta’s weight distribution.
Today there are numerous cars with these characteristics and they are all really well made.
Compared to the 1950s technical architecture’s rationalisation lead to different platforms, suspensions and engines. Nevertheless the brand’s personality still remains a purchase reason. This will be true in the future, when there will be less than ten big industrial groups with numerous technical aspects in common. The challenge is not to “create an Alfa”, but to create an Alfa according to the rules and for today’s market, guaranteeing to the customer that the brand won’t lose any of it’s personality, offering a high-quality product with an unmistakable design.
Having said that I want to start talking to you trying to find the answers to the questions you posted in the Alfisti.com workshop.
I hope many amongst you will be satisfied by my appearance today or over the coming months, when I’ll be back in the Alfisti.com forum.
Many Alfisti, amongst them “Biscione67”, “Roberto”, “Alfonso”, Desmochicco” and “Il Fusi”, asked about rear traction.
I think that this is an issue which might merit it’s own doctoral thesis in engineering, but I’ll try to give some answers …. First of all it’s not a question of “mechanical ideology”, but a question of rationality. There is no doubt that compact cars, those which are driven on a daily basis, have an advantage in terms of weight, when they use front traction; they are also easier to drive for a driver with less experience and offer great space inside. On the other hand when you reach a certain performance and torque, rear traction and a straight engine have numerous advantages, especially for those who know how to develop mechatronics, setting up the electronics the best possible way, assisted by the driver without doing any harm to driving pleasure.
There are many cars with front traction extremely fun to drive and there are many boring rear traction cars (although out of respect I can’t name any of them here). For us it’s fundamental to understand what we want to get from the car and only then we have to understand how we want to get there, choosing the adequate technology.
I think that it doesn’t make any sense to opt for a certain technology just for the sake of it, but you have to be extremely severe as far as the overall performance is concerned.
Another topic is the V6 engine (“M.Lendi”, “MikyBrera”, “SqualettoGe”).
I want to outline our reasoning, keeping the confidential nature of my role in the company. At Alfa Romeo, and in general all over the company, we are aware of the impact the V6 “Busso” had on the brand’s image. Replacing such a glorious engine wasn’t and won’t be easy. What I can say is that to create such an engine you need enormous investments, bigger than once a high level of reliability, low consumption and environmental standards were considered.
This is one of those cases when the rational aspect has to guarantee that you’re taking the right steps. For example when you first try to understand which cars should be fitted with such an engine and how this engine would be appreciated on the future markets. To calm you I can say that Fiat Powetrain Technologies technological patrimony, the company with exceptional competence in our group, is on an extremely high level, not to create a “V6” but “THE V6” – an avant-garde engine with character and temperament, which made Italian engine construction famous all over the world.
Talking about engines, I also want to reply to Marik ’71’s question as far as the 1750TBi is concerned.
At the moment it is not planned to apply the Multiair technology in the 1750’s engine, because we decided to raise the engine’s performance using the direct fuel injection potential and the double continuous phase distributor in combination with the supercharger.
Over the coming months we’ll see the debut of this engine in a version with higher performance, which - also thanks to ‘scavenging’, eliminating the turbo lag - will lead to a further step forward in carrying out Ala Romeo’s philosophy for the future: high-performing and enjoyable engines, which, thanks to downsizing, reduce consumption and emission.
But now please have a look at my comments, while I read the numerous questions you’ve been posting since yesterday, so we can start chatting in real time here on Alfisti.com!
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11.12.2009, 12:35
The world of product development - with Maurizio Consalvo
Hybrid-Darstellung
