VW Group Wants Seat to Rival Alfa Romeo Again

Recently, FCA’s Alfa Romeo has made quite a lot of noise that seems to make one of its rivals – Volkswagen – a bit annoyed. That’s why the German auto giant is pushing its Spanish-based Seat brand to start a more serious competition with Alfa Romeo in Europe, just as reported by Automotive News Europe.

This is not the first time Volkswagen uses Seat to compete with Alfa Romeo. In fact, it had experienced years of defeat in the face of the Italian luxury car maker because of the fact that it wasn’t as aspirationally attractive as Alfa Romeo, which even has a dedicated fan base to keep its loyal enthusiasts around.

Now with more confidence Volkswagen wants to try again, this time with a strategy that sounds more convincing. According to the company’s boss Herbert Diess, the strategy is to position Seat as a sporty, desirable, and emotional brand that represents the spirit of the youth today; especially those who have no idea about Alfa Romeo’s glorious history.

Most likely Seat will rely on its Cupra performance division which produces high-performance sports cars at its own level to attract young fans.

“For people our age it (Alfa) is a fantastic brand, but ever since I can remember Alfa has been on the decline,” said Diess. “Ask a 25-35-year-old about Alfa, they are at a loss, they have no idea what Alfa is,” he added.

Diess believes that Seat today has more potential than Alfa Romeo in Europe thanks to its “much better product mix” and “group network” that contains “the youngest customers”.

While it’s great to see the Volkswagen’s current CEO having such high optimism, it may not be as easy as he said for Seat to truly rival Alfa Romeo, an Italian motorsport legend that has been in existence for more than 100 years. Nevertheless, it’s still interesting to see what Seat can actually do about this. Time will tell.