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Marchionne threatens to move Alfa production out of Italy

Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne was unsurprisingly frank when asked by reporters about potential investments in Italian manufacturing for Alfa Romeo and Maserati, giving the Italian government the ultimatum, "Italy should decide if they want [Alfa Romeo's relaunch] to happen here or not as Fiat and Chrysler have several alternatives." Them's fightin' words.
Fiat's issue with the government stems directly from its courtroom clashes with the Fiom labor union. The two are currently embroiled in proceedings over longer shifts and shorter breaks, as Fiom has so far refused to sign a new contract citing revised labor laws that it says are anti-union.
According to Bloomberg, Fiat will be spending over $2.5 billion on development of eight new Alfas and six new Maseratis, in a bid to wrest some of the luxury pie away from BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi. But that's only going to happen if the government is willing to play ball and make life easier on Fiat.

2024 Maserati GranTurismo First Drive Review: Striking balance

ROME — ItÂ’s easy to argue that the coupe is dead — especially big coupes with four seats. Never a huge segment to begin with, this slice of the market has shrunk in recent years as buyers flock to SUVs and carmakers allocate their development budget accordingly. In 2023, it makes more sense from a business point of view to slap the “coupe” label on a four-door crossover than to put it on a real coupe with two doors. Maserati isnÂ’t giving up. ItÂ’s not just business; itÂ’s also personal. ThereÂ’s a big chunk of its heritage built on four-seater coupes, so it completely reinvented the GranTurismo instead of throwing the nameplate into the darkest locker of automotive history. ItÂ’s still a coupe, and it still has four seats, but significant changes to the powertrain (including a smaller engine and all-wheel drive) aim to broaden its appeal. Maserati planted its flag on this turf in 1947 when it released its first road car, the Pininfarina-designed A6 1500 Gran Turismo, and it has never strayed far from it since. Its designers channeled this heritage into the second-generation GranTurismo without veering into retro territory or using a Xerox machine. “People often ask me, ‘Are you inspired by the past?Â’ WeÂ’re not copying elements, weÂ’re not copying styles necessarily, but we do allow ourselves to be inspired by the way we were constructing our cars back then,” Klaus Busse, the head of MaseratiÂ’s design department, told me. He cited the proportions as an example: sitting low to the ground, the GranTurismo features a long hood and a short trunk lid, which are shapes that have characterized dozens of cars positioned in the gran turismo segment for decades. Beyond the basic shape, the GranTurismo shares little with its predecessor — it illustrates what Busse meant in 2020 when he told me that the then-new MC20 would influence the rest of the range. ItÂ’s recognizable as a Maserati thanks in part to vertical headlights mounted above an oval grille, and of course it features the three fender-mounted vents that have become the Italian carmakerÂ’s signature. The coupe features a pure, fluid design with one exception: the fin-like protrusion on the roof. It houses a camera, and itÂ’s only fitted to GranTurismo models ordered with the digital rear-view mirror. I learned that integrating it into the trunk lid, like a rear-view camera, wouldnÂ’t have provided sufficient visibility.

2022 Villa d'Este Concours d'Elegance Mega Gallery | The show in pictures

COMO, Italy — Held annually, the Villa d'Este Concours d'Elegance is, in many ways, Europe's version of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. It takes place in a beautiful location, and it brings together an impressive selection of rare and valuable cars. It's a real treat for the eyes, the ears, and, if you're into champagne, the palate. The 2022 edition of the show was no exception: About 50 cars were shipped to Lake Como from over a dozen countries, and it wasn't just the usual suspects. Sure, there were a lot of pre-war cars (including a couple of one-off models), but some of the icons that younger enthusiasts grew up with (like the Lamborghini Countach) were present as well. This year's event was split into eight categories: The Art Deco Era of Motor Car Design, The Supercharged Mercedes-Benz, How Grand Entrances Were Once Made, Eight Decades of Ferrari Represented in Eight Icons, "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday," BMW's M Cars and Their Ancestors, Pioneers That Chased the Magic 300 KPH, And a design award for concept and prototypes. The jury gave the coveted "best of show" award to a 1937 Bugatti 57 S owned by Andrew Picker of Monaco, while the aforementioned classes were won by, respectively: The Bugatti 57 S, shown below, A 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K Cabriolet, A 1956 Chrysler Boano Coupe Speciale, A 1966 Ferrari 356 P Berlinetta Speciale Tre Posti, A 1961 Porsche 356 B Carrera Abarth GTL, A 1972 BMW 3.0 CSL, A 1989 Porsche 959 Sport, And the Bugatti Bolide concept unveiled in 2020. Winning at Villa d'Este is a big deal: The cars are judged by a panel of highly experienced judges. No one gave me a scoring sheet, presumably out of fear that I'd award points to the late-model Fiat 600 lurking in the parking lot, but several cars that didn't win an award caught my eye. One is a 1934 Bugatti Type 59 Sports, a grand-prix racer that was once owned by King Leopold III of Belgium and that has never been restored — its patina is inimitable. Another is a 1961 BMW 700 RS. One of two built (the other is in the BMW collection), it's a tiny, ultra-light roadster related to the 700 and powered by a 697-cubic-centimeter air-cooled flat-twin tuned to develop 70 horsepower. It won several hill-climb events during the 1960s, and it's one of the rarest cars ever to wear a BMW roundel. Aston Martin's freshly-restored 1979 Bulldog concept was cool to see as well; check out the cassette player integrated into the headliner!