Donuts

I actually think the Alpha looks good, it looks smaller in person

leadfoot4

OK, I see your point. If I was in the market for an upscale sports sedan, I wouldn't be all that impressed if the dealer was parking it with the "door buster specials". Even Hyundai is marketing it's Genesis as an upscale car, and now moving the Genesis sales/service operations to separate buildings.

Is Alfa having the current Fiat dealers doing their marketing?

Donuts

It seems to be the case, we drove by earlier today and they had a couple of them out front surrounded by chit cans

leadfoot4

It doesn't provide a good perception, I guess, but when you're a small automaker, you do what you have to do. I remember when I was a teen-ager, back in the early-mid 60s, and "furrin cars" were just beginning to appear in the US market. Other than VW, which was reasonably well established at that point, a lot of the smaller manufacturers were marketing their cars through just about anybody that would sell them. I recall some repair shops becoming "car dealers", literally, overnight....

Donuts

The dealer row starts with a Bmw dealer then Mini , Hyundai then Fiat. By the time you get to Fiat its starting to look like an auction lot. Same group owns fiat and Hyundai but the Hyundai lot is well organized and managed. Chances are they stick the numb nuts in the fiat store but if you're considering buying the Alpha you probably hesitate when it's time to buy from that group, too bad for Alpha until they can get enough volume to get stand alone showroom. Nothing like going to buy a $80,000 car that's haphazardly sitting in the midst of economy cars, dirty and recovering from a tire kicking test drive by a local ricer..

leadfoot4