It looks like new Alfa Romeo's will return to a rear wheel drive platform from 2015 onwards
Despite decades of losses, parent company Fiat isn't about to give up on Alfa. This year, Automotive News reports, Alfa Romeo's sales are expected to drop below the 100,000-unit mark for the first time since 1969. But Fiat chief Sergio Marchionne has a plan to turn it around......again. This will actually be his fourth attempt at returning Alfa to profitability since taking the helm less than ten years ago.
Full details of Marchionne's plans for Alfa – and for the Fiat and Chrysler groups altogether – won't be revealed until April, but what we already know is that it will center around a new rear-drive platform being developed by sister-brand Maserati. On first reading that doesn't exactly sound like a recipe for success but it will at least be good news for enthusiasts who sigh at generation after generation of lackluster, front-drive Alfas, but it gets better: since Alfa itself can't justify the development cost of new architecture, the new rear-drive platform is also expected to be used for future Chrysler and Dodge products like the replacements for the 300, Charger and Challenger.
For Alfa's part, the platform is anticipated to underpin the new Giulia saloon and estate, a larger saloon which is still to be confirmed and a midsize crossover, the first of which are expected to arrive late in 2015 or early the following year.
