Lancia doesn't have much luck does it? Having just introduced the attractive new Delta, with an expensive TV ad campaign (at least here in France) with the film star, what's his name, we have global financial meltdown, with the automobile industry suffering very badly.
In France many factories are to close for a period, and I know that locally there have been many lay-offs - for example in many of the engineering and machining companies in the Arve valley near here. FIAT by all accounts has been doing quite well in comparison. This is amazing considering that the group was in desperate straits just a few years ago. If car sales get slow for FIAT though, I suggest that instead of making cars they might start making spare parts for some of their classic models. The Italian spares service is an international disgrace. A friend here has a 1971 BMW 2002 for which he needed a new brake master cylinder. He went to BMW and it was delivered in less than a week. Those with Fulvias of the same epoch or Integrales from twenty years later can only dream of such things. Why cannot the Italians provide this sort of service? It might in months to come, keep some skilled people in jobs...
And on the subject of the automobile industry, the following cartoon from the Boston Globe amused me: after all as the old saying went "What's good for GM is good for America"!
In France many factories are to close for a period, and I know that locally there have been many lay-offs - for example in many of the engineering and machining companies in the Arve valley near here. FIAT by all accounts has been doing quite well in comparison. This is amazing considering that the group was in desperate straits just a few years ago. If car sales get slow for FIAT though, I suggest that instead of making cars they might start making spare parts for some of their classic models. The Italian spares service is an international disgrace. A friend here has a 1971 BMW 2002 for which he needed a new brake master cylinder. He went to BMW and it was delivered in less than a week. Those with Fulvias of the same epoch or Integrales from twenty years later can only dream of such things. Why cannot the Italians provide this sort of service? It might in months to come, keep some skilled people in jobs...
And on the subject of the automobile industry, the following cartoon from the Boston Globe amused me: after all as the old saying went "What's good for GM is good for America"!
Source: Boston GlobeA bientôt, j'éspère.
