NOVEMBER 1, 2004

Kalbfell goes to Alfa Romeo

The recent departure of Karl-Heinz Kalbfell, the chairman and chief executive of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, came as a shock to everyone at parent company BMW. Kalbfell has been with the Munich company since 1977 but resigned because he wanted to take up "new responsibilities outside the BMW Group". It now seems that the job on offer was to be chairman of Alfa Romeo. Kalbfell will begin work in Italy in January.

Kalbfell is a huge racing fan (from 1988 to 1999 was in charge of BMW Motorsport) and it is likely that his presence at Alfa Romeo will have a big effect on the Italian company's sporting programmes.