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Will Ferrari End Up With Toyota?
Peter Robinson, the European Editor of AUTOCAR, has written the following article. It is reproduced here for the interest of all Ferrari tifosi:
"By 2001 the world's car makers will have played the end game.
That's DaimlerChrysler director Jurgen Hubbert's timing and description for the motor industry consolidation that is driving various manufacturers into each other's arms. Hubbert, the man responsible for Mercedes-Benz passenger cars, is well placed to know.
In his view, only five of today's groupings are safe from takeover or further mergers: General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota and, predictably in view of his position, DaimlerChrysler. Of the independents, only Honda is seen as capable of surviving long term without an accord with a rival.
What of Renault-Nissan and BMW-Rover? Neither, believes Hubbert, is safe. Coming from one of the executives involved in DaimlerChrysler's decision earlier this year not to buy Nissan, that's telling. He believes that unless a major part of Nissan's huge debt - believed to be around £15.6 billion - can be written off, it has little chance of finding the money necessary to develop the cars needed if it is successfully to compete over the next decade. That is despite an infusion of funds and a plan for serious model sharing with Renault.
Fiat then? In the conventional wisdom, either DaimlerChrysler or Ford will buy it within the next 18 months. The fact that Hubbert is happy to talk suggests DaimlerChrysler has gone cold on the idea. However, in his view the Agnelli family is prepared to sell Fiat Auto, but senior Fiat executives Paolo Cantarella and Roberto Testore want to prove they can manage the company successfully and produce respectable profits. The asking price is £16.2 million.
That leaves Ford. Why would it want to buy Fiat Auto - Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo but not Ferrari and Maserati, which belong to Fiat SPA - when Fiat's range duplicates so much of Ford's European line-up? It's because the Italian firm is so strong in the Mediterranean markets, where Ford is comparatively weak. Effectively, Fiat would become to Ford what SEAT and Skoda are to Volkswagen. Fiat, so strong in small cars - Seicento, Panda, Punto, Ypsilon - would concentrate on this end of the market. With its near three million annual capacity, the blue oval would leapfrog GM and become the world's largest car maker.
Ford is bleeding because the cost of manufacturing in Europe, and especially Germany and the UK, is prohibitive. It believes Fiat has the lowest cost base in Europe and believes the Italian company's plants in Poland and Brazil would dramatically reduced the cost of building Ford's small and therefore often marginally profitable, cars. There's also Alfa Romeo and Lancia to think about, now Ford owns Volvo and Jaguar.
Lancia, which no longer builds cars in right-hand drive, surely would disappear given Ford's ambitious plans for Volvo. Alfa, the sporting alternative to BMW, could easily be sustained. Ironic, if it happens, because without the Fiat-led resistance from the Italian government, Ford would have bought Alfa in 1986.
The big question for all enthusiasts, though, is Ferrari. Without Fiat's engineering and financial support, Ferrari couldn't hope to sustain its road and racing activities for long. Better, it would seem, if Ferrari and Maserati fell to Ford, which, likewise, almost took over the prancing horse in '64. But would Ford want to run both Jaguar and Ferrari F1 teams? Maybe the Agnellis will end up selling Ferrari-Maserati to Toyota. For many, that would be the end game."
The above article appeared in AUTOCAR magazine of 25th August 1999. It is reproduced here with permission of AUTOCAR.
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