Ferrari still high as Fiat falters

FERRARI says it will be immune to the global economic downturn that has affected almost every other car-maker this year by announcing it will sell as many cars as ever next year.

Speaking at the Italian supercar brand’s annual end-of-year media conference, Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo said that while other makers had downgraded sales and profit forecasts for both 2008 and 2009, Ferrari would again sell a near-record 6000 vehicles this year and next.

“Enzo Ferrari said to me in the 1970s fuel crisis we'd always find 1500 people crazy enough to buy a Ferrari,” said Mr Montezemelo, who is also the chairman of the Fiat Group.

“Adjusting the numbers for 2009, I think that we'll continue to find 6000 people crazy enough to buy a Ferrari.”Nevertheless, unlike sister Italian brand Maserati, Ferrari will not have a presence at next month’s Detroit motor show, and the Ferrari and Fiat chief admitted that while some new model releases would be held back from next year, Fiat 500 convertible and Alfa Romeo’s 147-replacing 149 hatch would not be among them.

“But in the Group as a whole, we're holding back launching cars already developed for better times. But we'll definitely launch the Fiat 500 Cabrio and the Alfa Romeo 149 in 2009,” he said.

Both models are slated for an Australian release in 2010, while Alfa Romeo’s five-seat crossover in the mould of BMW’s X6 and Fiat’s seven-seat Multipla people-mover replacement based on the same platform, both of which were scheduled for a late-2009 launch, appear to be the first casualties of the worldwide automotive slowdown.

Alfa Romeo’s US reintroduction has also been delayed until 2011, while the return of Lancia to right-hand drive markets led by the UK has also been postponed, putting the luxury Italian marque off Australia’s agenda indefinitely.

Fiat Group CEO Sergio Marchionne was far more pessimistic about the resilience of the global automotive industry in an interview with Automotive News Europe earlier this month, when he predicted just six to eight global car-makers would remain within 24 months.

“By the time we finish with this in the next 24 months, as far as mass-producers are concerned, we're going to end up with one American house, one German of size one French-Japanese, maybe with an extension in the US one in Japan one in China and one potential European player,” Mr Marchionne told ANE.

“The only way for companies to survive is if they make more than 5.5 million cars per year,” he said.

Only five car-makers - Toyota, General Motors, Volkswagen, Ford and Renault-Nissan – currently sell new vehicles in those numbers globally.

“This business is going to be completely different. It cannot continue as it did in the past. Independence in this business is no longer sustainable,” said the chief of the Fiat Group, which in October reported its best third-quarter operating margin ever of 5.6 per cent – one of the best results posted by any car-maker in the previous quarter.

In the same month Fiat said it would be profitable next year even if sales volumes fell an average of 20 per cent in the vehicle segments it competed. But Mr Marchionne is no longer so confident.

“I am really gloomy. What we are seeing is unprecedented. I am 56 and I have never seen anything like this,” he told ANE.