Roberto Fedeli returns to Italy with move to Alfa Romeo

Former Ferrari chief engineer Roberto Fedeli is on his way back to Italy from Germany to become chief technical officer for Alfa Romeo and Maserati. With sources insisting Alfa Romeo's tech boss Philippe Krief left the company earlier this month, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has wasted no time in reaching out to its former engineering star.

As its eight-model comeback business plan seems to be in disarray, and the two confirmed models – the Giulia and the unnamed SUV – delayed, Alfa Romeo desperately needed a spark, which it hopes Fedeli will provide.

He will also be responsible for Maserati, whose Levante SUV has also suffered development delays. Planned to be on sale midway through last year, it will now hit showrooms in the summer at the earliest and should be officially unveiled at the Geneva motor show.

The two Italian premium brands are intimately connected, with the Alfa Romeo engineering skunkworks responsible for the development of the rear-drive Giulia architecture based inside Maserati’s Modena headquarters complex.

Affectionately known as “The Prince” during his 26-year stint at Ferrari, Fedeli’s appointment has been confirmed by FCA. The Italian will arrive in his offices in Torino and Modena as crises loom for both brands.

Fedeli was appointed Ferrari’s head of research and development in 2007 and was responsible for everything from the near-perfect 458 Speciale to the complex FF, but left after bringing the LaFerrari to production. He spent less than 18 months at BMW’s Munich technical and development headquarters.

The Giulia's much-hyped new architecture, which Alfa boasted set a lap record for mid-sized saloons at the Nürburgring in testing, failed the EU's front, side and rear crash tests, supplier sources told Automotive News Europe. These are said to be behind the latest six-month delay in the Giulia's arrival to market, leaving Alfa with just the Giulietta five-door hatch and the unloved MiTo three-door hatch to survive with.

Alfa Romeo did not respond to phone or email queries on the delays, issues and future plans.

To compound Fedeli’s difficulties, the Quattroporte and Ghibli have been languishing in sales after strong starts. Maserati is also deep in development for both the replacement for its ageing four-seat GranTurismo and GranCabrio large sports cars, as well as turning its two-seat Alfieri concept car into a production reality.

There is even talk that the civil war in Syria might force Maserati to dump the Levante name, so the company has made approaches to Volkswagen to recover the Mistral name it used on sports cars in the 1970s.

While Levante is the Italian word for a piece of the Ligurian coastline near Genoa, other historical definitions include the geographical name for Syria and Palestine and the French name for the area that covers Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Cyprus and Turkey – at least five of which are bad-news hotspots today.