alfa romeo spider

Fiat Ponders Selling Alfa Romeo to VW

While Sergio Marchionne, CEO of both Italian automaker Fiat and American automaker Chrysler, busies himself with fixing Chrysler and taking the mostly government-owned automaker into the public markets next year, he is wrestling with the dilemma of whether to sell Fiat's beloved, but money-losing, Alfa Romeo brand to Volkswagen.

The companies have been negotiating the possible sales, according to industry sources, confirming a report in Automotive News.

Volkswagen supervisory board chairman Ferdinand Piech has recently taken the unusual course of publicly stating that VW would like to buy Alfa, and that it believes as a company that it could turn the Italian brand around to profitability more easily than Fiat. That move was probably meant to inform industry analysts, and thus pressure Fiat to sell.

VW, of course, has made a business the last decade or more of collecting brands. Today, the VW Group includes not only VW, but Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Skoda, Seat and most recently, Porsche.

Tags: Alfa Romeo, Alfa Romeo 159, alfa romeo giulietta, alfa romeo spider, AlfaRomeoMito, chrysler, sergio marchionne, volkswagen