2005 Geneva Motor Show, Part III

Alfa, Maserati Won’t Blur, Says Kalbfell

2005 Pininfarina Maserati Birdcage

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Though they may now share one boss, don’t expect Alfa Romeo and Maserati to lose their individual brand identities, asserted CEO Karl-Heinz Kalbfell in an interview with TheCarConnection.com. Last month’s decision to strip Maserati away from Ferrari and merge it in with Fiat’s Alfa arm came as one of a series of surprises following Fiat’s $2 billion settlement with General Motors. Originally intended to help Ferrari grow revenues without diluting its own brand, Maserati will now help in the hoped-for revival of long-struggling Alfa, said Kalbfell.

Maserati, he noted, will retain a reasonably degree of autonomy. It will remain based in its ancestral home of Modena, Italy, and will continue to work with Ferrari’s designers and engineers. But Maserati, Kalbfell added, “may enter new product categories and so it would need additional resources.” There will almost certainly be ways for Alfa and Maserati to share, the CEO said, but he intends to ensure that this doesn’t result in so-called “badge-engineered” products that are little more than clones with different sheetmetal skins. The challenge is to maintain a balance between cost and brand DNA, said the former Volkswagen senior executive, noting that VW is an example of how sharing platforms can work — or cause problems.