Is the Alfa Romeo Spider part of the Fiat/Chrysler North American product offensive from Sergio Marchionne? Time will tell but as you can see here Alfa keeps tinkering with an already beautiful car and hopefully it will see this side of the Atlantic.

From Motorcrave.com:

I’m not sure that we’re quite ready for a new Alfa Romeo design study, after being bombarded with Alfa concepts like the Pininfarina 2uettottanta just months ago at the Geneva Motor Show. But the next generation of brilliant automotive designers must learn, so Alfa teamed up with a trio of designers from the Politecnico di Milano University to create this Spider design study. The designers are Alberto Gaiani, Massimo Paparella and Michela Zedda.

Read the full article here.

Chrysler Chairman Sergio Marchionne will lay out the companies five year plan Wednesday which will more than double Chrysler’s annual sales from 1.3 million last year to 2.8 million by 2013. The question is “will anyone believe him”? Plans can sound good but delivering is another matter. They way I see it is that everything really hinges on how well the North American market warms to Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo products.

From the Detroit Free Press:

Chrysler’s chances of ending its sales decline and returning to profitability should become clearer Wednesday, when Fiat is to lay out a five-year business plan.

The strategy for the Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Lancia brands is expected to reveal new details about the vehicles Chrysler’s North American factories will build. Also expected are details of Alfa’s return to the U.S. market, plus future product lines for Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and the new Ram commercial-vehicle brand.

Read the full article here.

The buzz around Chrysler has been very negative, so it’s rather surprising to here CEO Sergio Marchionne express such confidence about the prospects for the company.

After a four-month deep dive into the workings of Chrysler Group LLC, Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne remains convinced the automaker can be profitable in two years.

The Auburn Hills automaker is on track to divulge its five-year plan on Nov. 4, to make public its quarterly financial statements next year and to offer public stock as early as 2011, he said.

A recent report by analyst Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley supports Marchionne’s forecast. Jonas said Chrysler could report an operating profit of $841 million in 2010, but end the year with a net loss of $169 million. Full profitability is expected in 2011: $2.48 billion in operating profit and $952 million in net income, Jonas said.

In an interview with Toronto’s Globe and Mail, Marchionne affirmed Thursday that the automaker could reach profitability in 24 months. Just a week before, the CEO contended that “we’re not bleeding as people think we are,” noting that “the level of cost consciousness at this house is probably at a historical high.”

Some had been speculating that Chrysler might not make it another year given its challenges in the market. Marchionne had fueled some of the negative speculation when he said in September that the situation at Chrysler was “worse than we thought.”

Marchionne has an incredible track record as a turnaround specialist, but Chrysler will present the ultimate challenge. The acquisition could be a stroke of genius, as Fiat paid nothing and now owns 20% of the company with full control in exchange for the contribution of small-car technology. Fiat dominates with small cars and this offer it the opportunity to return to America. They also have Alfa Romeo which presents an upscale brand.

That said, it was reported recently that there would be a new push to turn Chrysler into an upscale brand positioned a notch above Lincoln and Cadillac. As noted by many analysts, that seems like a real stretch. Chrysler is a mess, so now consumers are supposed to start paying a premium for their cars?

In any event, it’s refreshing to hear some optimism coming from Marchionne. Hopefully he can back it up.

I’m not sure I’m buying this. The article cited here goes on to speculate that Sergio Marchionne is setting things up to make more drastic changes.

The situation at recently rescued Chrysler Group is even more dire than first thought, the CEO of Italy’s Fiat — which came to the aid of the U.S. automaker — said Wednesday.

“We were surprised by how little had been done in the past 24 months,” Sergio Marchionne told reporters in Frankfurt, Germany.

Chrysler will present a revised business plan in November, Marchionne told reporters.

“We have to be absolutely clear about what we want to do with Chrysler and, as a management team, where the organization is going to be in five years,” Marchionne said, according to the industry newspaper Automotive News.

Unlike General Motors, which has continued to roll out new and redesigned products even as it entered and exited bankruptcy, Chrysler has had little to tout. Its most recent new market entries are the Dodge Challenger muscle car — essentially a re-bodied Dodge Charger sedan — and the Ram pick-up.

The only new product Chrysler has entering the market this year is an industrial-duty version of the Ram truck. After that, a new version of the Jeep Grand Cherokee mid-sized SUV isn’t expected until the middle of next year.

The economy is very important. If car sales can continue to rebound, then the margin for error is greater for Fiat.

Now that it has emerged from bankruptcy with the help of the American taxpayer, Chrysler needs to make small cars efficiently to survive. Fiat will be a huge help with its contribution of small-engine technology, but it looks like Chrysler can learn efficient production techniques from Fiat’s factory in Tychy, Poland.

The mammoth Fiat plant here, which churned out nearly half a million cars last year, may hold some of the answers for Chrysler (as well as Ford Motor and General Motors), as it struggles to regain its footing after its bankruptcy and reduce its dependence on muscle-bound trucks and sport utility vehicles.

For those who remember Fiat before its ignominious retreat from the American market — the name was said to stand for “Fix It Again, Tony” — the Italian automaker may seem an unlikely role model. It left the United States in the early 1980s after widespread quality problems.

But Fiat itself has undergone a revolution under Sergio Marchionne, who became its chief executive in 2004, raising standards for quality and reliability at plants like Tychy and mastering the art of building smaller cars with high efficiency. Chrysler hopes he can do the same thing for it now that he has assumed control of the American company.

“We are lucky there is a crisis,” said the director of the Tychy plant, Zdzislaw Arlet, unable to resist a gibe at the bigger cars and trucks that have traditionally stolen the industry spotlight. “Everybody wants to build small cars now.”

At Tychy (pronounced TICK-ee), one secret is flexibility: The latest robotic technology is balanced by workers who can quickly shift models to match demand. That is one reason Tychy is operating around the clock, six days a week, while most other auto plants in Europe and the United States are running at a fraction of capacity, increasing costly nonproductive downtime.

Marchionne has proven that he’s a great car guy, and there’s reason to be optimistic about his ability to transform Chrysler. With this visit the process has begun.

Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne said he needed scale to compete, and now he’s plowing forward in China.

The Fiat Group announced a 50-50 joint venture on Monday with the Guangzhou Automobile Group to make cars and engines for the Chinese market, the latest move by the Italian automaker to expand outside its home market.

The companies said they would build a 173-acre plant in Changsha, in Hunan province, at a cost of more than $556 million, with production to begin by late 2011.

Upon completion of the first phase of development, the venture will have the capacity to make 140,000 cars and 220,000 engines a year.

The companies said capacity at the plant, which will make fuel-efficient, low-emission vehicles, could eventually be increased to 250,000 cars and 300,000 engines a year.

Sergio Marchionne, Fiat’s chief executive, has described the world’s carmakers as being in a struggle for survival, with only those of sufficient scale and efficiency capable of riding out the crisis. Fiat, which had revenue last year of $83 billion, acquired a controlling 20 percent stake in Chrysler Group LLC in June to gain access to the North American market.

The Guangzhou Automobile Group, a state-owned holding company, had 2008 revenue of $16 billion.

The company, which has joint ventures with major partners including Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp., said it delivered more than 530,000 cars to customers last year.

Fiat has been looking for a new Chinese partner since it terminated a venture with Nanjing Auto in late 2007. A planned joint venture with Chery Automobile, China’s largest domestic carmaker, was to start production this year, but the project was put on indefinite hold in March.

Marchionne also said that Fiat is still interested in Opel as well.

Fiat might be throwing Chrysler a lifeline.

Fiat SpA and Chrysler LLC on Tuesday confirmed the Italian auto maker will take at least a 35% stake in Chrysler as part of a deal to share technology and bring small cars developed by Fiat to the U.S.

The move is an attempt to revive two of the world’s storied auto makers and is likely to eventually give Fiat control of Chrysler’s operations, people familiar with the matter said. Under terms of the deal, Fiat has the option of increasing that to as much as 55%, these people said.

Fiat, the stronger of the two car makers, wouldn’t immediately put cash into Chrysler. Instead, it would obtain its stake mainly in exchange for covering the cost of retooling a Chrysler plant to produce one or more Fiat models to be sold in the U.S., these people said. Fiat would also provide engine and transmission technology to help Chrysler introduce new, fuel-efficient small cars.

The deal is the latest maneuver by Fiat’s chief, Sergio Marchionne, who has pulled the Italian company back from the brink collapse since taking over in 2004.

This might be a great combination. We’ll see how it plays out.