Congratulations! He has been hired as the CEO of Alfa Romeo. Now what?

You have 10 years to improve Alfa Romeo. How do you convince your Stellantis lords to keep the brand alive?

for sebastian bell

8 hours ago

for sebastian bell

In early 2021, shortly after Stellantis’ formation, the conglomerate’s chief executive said that each of its many brands would be given 10 years to prove they still had a place in the automotive landscape.

An act of grace, giving brands like Chrysler one last chance to get to market, or a doomsday fire burning under the buttocks of CEOs whose companies just aren’t doing well enough, depending on your point of view, strategy means that the Stellantis brands at least have a clear goal for the next decade.

So we would like to put you in charge of one of those companies to ask what you would do under the circumstances. And we’re not giving you an easy one. Alfa Romeo has often produced exemplary cars, but it is saddled with the weight of history and the need to produce “soulful” cars in a world that cares more about digital genius.

Read: Stellantis brands have 10 years to prove they can make it work

However, its current CEO, Jean-Philippe Imparato, has set two clear goals for the company. First, he wants 40 percent of Alfa Romeo’s sales to come from markets outside of Europe, while they recently stood at just 18 percent.

Second, it wants the brand to go fully electric by 2027. It’s a tight schedule, but it’s a move that’s hard to argue against, given looming regulations in Europe, where the brand will continue to sell 60 percent of its their vehicles.

Still, Alfa Romeo is losing about eight years of potential internal combustion sales in Europe, as well as countless more in other jurisdictions like the US, and in this thought experiment, it’s not required to follow Imparato’s rules.

So what would you do? Would you keep the 90 degree V6 alive for a few more years to try to squeeze the last of its performance? Would you scrap it and intimidate the CEO of Maserati into lending you the Nettuno V6?

Or would you, like Imparato, ditch internal combustion engines altogether and go all-in on electric vehicles? If so, what products would you keep alive and what would you add to the lineup to make the company more attractive to its Stellantis overlords when the bells ring for brands in 2031? Let us know in the comments below.