Exclusive: Klaus Busse on Fiat and Alfa’s future

Meeting at the FCA Group’s Centro Stile design studio, Busse is in a fine mood and quick to talk up his team’s well-received 2019 Geneva concepts, the Alfa Tonale and Fiat Centoventi. “These cars both reflect Italian design, but in their own way,” Busse begins. “With the Tonale you can see our belief in hand sculpture and modelling in a time of digital and virtual reality (which we also use). The symbiosis between modeller and designer is very apparent. Respecting where we come from but interpreting it for the future.

“Then a few feet across the piazza in Geneva we had the Fiat Centoventi, a completely different approach. It’s our view of Italian product design. When talking about product design a lot of people go with Bauhaus, but the Italian approach is very much focused on problem-solving with more optimism. The Centoventi is ultra-functional but look at the car and you can’t help but smile, because it’s an optimistic design and environment. Alessi springs to mind relating to that approach. Compare a Bauhaus salt-and-pepper pot set compared to an Alessi one, and you’ll understand what I mean.”

While the Centoventi is clearly more conceptual, the Tonale gained media plaudits for the seeming ease with which it could translate into production. How close the concept is to the showroom-ready car – widely tipped for a 2020 unveil – Busse won’t quite let on, but his following words suggest Alfa fans needn’t worry. “As a general statement, I don’t think I would do a concept car that later leads to disappointment,” he says with a wry smile.

He’s more tight-lipped about the future of the once mighty Lancia – seemingly FCA’s least-loved brand today, if the lack of recent production or concept activity shown to the public is any guide. Busse clearly has a personal fondness for the marque, however, singling out the 1980s ‘037’ rally car as one of his favourites from the newly opened Fiat Heritage Hub space just 500 metres down the road from Centro Stile, which houses hundreds of carefully curated classic Fiats, Abarths, Alfas and Lancias [see CDN’s separate story].

Busse manages a large team at Centro Stile – he half-jokes he’s not exactly sure how big it is at any one time, given part-time modellers working alongside in-house staff – but relishes the wider FCA global talent pool too. “We have 10-12 brands, if you include Mopar and SRT, so if I need stimulus for Maserati or Jeep, I can ask another nine studios,” he enthuses. “The managers of the brand are stable; they need to live and breathe the brand and think about the strategy for the next 20 years. But the designers we like to keep flexible. We don’t want them to only work on one brand until the end of their careers.”

So, what does Busse think Fiat will be about in the next 10-20 years? “The Centoventi is – aside from the 500 – what we believe is Fiat,” he continues. “That discussion happened more or less the moment I arrived here in Italy in 2015. We created a dedicated room at Centro Stile where we collected ideas. We call it Panda room, not because the Centoventi is the next Panda but it was the spirit of the Panda mk.1, the second iconic car after the 500.

“The room became this amazing stimulus for creativity. We didn’t have formal presentations, we had couches and coffee. With the Tonale, a C-segment SUV, you know the package and the customer, and you create a beautiful car within those parameters. But with the Centoventi we didn’t know where the journey might lead. Would it be A- or B-segment, a Panda or something different? How to address electrification and continue to be affordable but also cool and optimistic. First there were words then details and then sketches and before you know it the car more or less designed itself. We just had to clean it up for the show. The 500 is the emotional side, the Centoventi our functional side.”

Does that truly mean the end of under-performing Fiat products like the underwhelming recent Tipo hatchback then? Busse is firm but fair in his response: “All I’m saying is that the Centoventi is a legit ‘crystal ball’ or outlook of how the head of the brand, and the head of design for the brand thinks about that aspect of Fiat. The Centoventi is so rich in ideas and clear in its design statement that you don’t need much fantasy to see it is very applicable not just to a city car.”