Marchionne Disarms Alfa-In-U.S. Speculation, Calls Cost of Coming 300 Platform 'Shocking'

Marchionne Disarms Alfa-In-U.S. Speculation, Calls Cost of Coming 300 Platform 'Shocking'

At Chrysler Group LLC's unveiling of its 5-year business plan at its headquarters in Auburn Hills, MI, today, CEO Sergio Marchionne laid to rest a few rumors about the new joining of Chrysler and Fiat S.p.A. One of them was the long-rumored ambition for Fiat to use the alliance to distribute its Alfa Romeo brand in Chrysler's U.S. dealerships.

There is no current plan to sell Alfas in Chrysler dealerships, said Marchionne. In wearing his Chrysler hat (he also is Fiat's CEO) Marchionne insisted that Alfa Romeo would have to "make a convincing case" about which Alfa Romeo models could be profitably exported to the U.S. and sold in Chrysler showrooms.

He also said that one of Fiat management's overriding goals is to reduce the number of platforms Chrysler and eventually the two companies, have in production because engineering and development support of multiple platforms is so expensive.

"I don't even want to tell you the cost of the new 300 platform," Marchionne said. The platform, developed prior to Fiat's acquisition of 20 percent of Chrysler and management control of the company, was much more expensive than Fiat would have approved, he said.

"You'd be shocked out of your pants," about the cost of the 300 architecture, he said.

He said the all-new 300, which is coming next year, already was much too far along in development for Fiat to do anything about its cost.

Michelle Krebs:  is Editor-in-Chief of AutoObserver.com. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.