Well, not exactly. But kinda. You see, it was announced today that "Ferrari will take a more active role in engine development for Alfa, similar to what Ferrari already did for Maserati." Those the words of Fiat-Alfa-Chrysler (and therefore, Ferrari-Maserati too) boss Sergio Marchionne.
What Ferrari did, specifically, for Maserati was it started building Maser's engines. The V8 in the GranTurismo and Quattroporte and the V8 in the 458 and California are actually quite closely related and are cast and assembled in the same Ferrari factory for both brands.
Now, this (sadly) doesn't mean that Alfa is going to start stuffing V8s into the Mito and Giulietta (oh, the thought) but what it does mean is that Marchionne is keen to start putting more clear air between humdrum Fiats and sexy Alfas, and he thinks that the key to that is in the engine. Start getting Ferrari to tinker with Fiat's MultiAir, TwinAir and MultiJet diesel units and, voila (or the Italian equivalent), you have a new family of specifically Alfa engines good enough to take on the best that BMW and Audi can produce. Presumably, such engines will also migrate westward, into Dodge and Chrysler models to be sold under the SRT brand.
To be fair, there's nothing much wrong with Fiat's 1.4 Turbo petrol, especially once it's been tweaked for service in Abarth models and likewise, the 1750 TBI 1.8 turbo engine from the Giulietta Cloverleaf gives little or nothing away to any German engine. So quite what Ferrari can do, and how far the tinkering will go, remains to be seen.
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