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Abarth, Alfa Romeo and Maserati get common CEO

27th of January 2010

The worldwide economic crisis seriously hit the automobile market. Since the beginning of the crisis, all the automakers have taken many measures in order to survive, including job cuts, factory closings and other cost cuts.

Sergio Marchionne, the boss of the Fiat Group, has revealed that a new group will be created for the sporty Abarth, Alfa Romeo and Maserati that will be headed by mister Harald J. Wester. Mister Harald J. Wester was born on the 26th of February 1958 in Linz am Rhein in Germany. For those of you who forgot, the Fiat Group recently bought a 20% stake in the American company Chrysler.

Harald J. Wester was appointed today as CEO of Alfa Romeo, replacing Sergio Cravero. Sergio Cravero was not fired. He will be kept in the company as he will take charge of the Product Portfolio Planning & Product Concept of Fiat Group Automobiles. The 52 year old German will keep his current positions as CEO of Abarth and Maserati and CTO (Chief Technical Officer) for the Fiat Group. It is important to mention that Harald Wester is a former Volkswagen and Audi executive. Hopefully, we will not get to see Alfa Romeo models looking like Volkswagens.

Sergio Marchionne has stated that ``The purpose of bringing the Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Abarth brands under the same leadership is to emphasize and leverage the value of the shared qualities of the three brands in terms of their sporting characteristics and performance``.

The situation of the Alfa Romeo brand is currently very difficult as not only it is not making a profit, but it is actually loosing a lot of money. It seems that the boss of the Fiat Group, mister Sergio Marchionne is currently looking into several possibilities in order to reduce the losses. Thus, it is quite possible that all the investments for Alfa Romeo will be stopped, leaving the company with three older models (the Alfa Romeo 159, the Alfa Romeo Spider and the Alfa Romeo Brera ) along with two new models (the Alfa Romeo MiTo and the Alfa Romeo Giulietta ). It seems that the future of the Alfa Romeo brand is standing on the shoulders of the Giulietta model. If the Alfa Romeo Giulietta will be as successful as hoped, more investments will be made but otherwise things are looking bad.

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