Has this been discussed on here recently?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12291160
It's a rotten strategy so far as I'm concerned - I simply can't see a market for a FIAT badged Dodge Journey, nor a Lancia badged Chrysler 300.
I'm a FIAT fan, but I simply wouldn't countenance a Chrysler or Dodge - and as a likely buyer of an MPV in the next three years, I would have loved to have considered a FIAT, but not a "FIAT Freemont" thank you.
I can't imagine Lancia purists being too keen either, and as for an Alfa Romeo SUV?? Oh good grief.
What are they doing??
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Fiat + Dodge = Dodgy Fiat :o)
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Get real, they are all bashed out tin and made from the same parts bought in by the manufacturers. You could swap the badges around on many cars these days and end up with the same components.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 1 Mar 11 at 11:59
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I think you have got it the wrong way round. What is actually happening is a lot of Fiats/Alfas/Lancies will be badged a Chyslier and made in the USA.
There is a new one based on a Lancia which is actually based on the Fiat Panda. The new 4X4 Panda will be sold as a Jeep in the USA.
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>> I think you have got it the wrong way round.
Not really, there may be models going in both directions but the article I linked to speaks of Chryslers and Dodges being badged as FIATS, Lancias and Alfas.
Yuck.
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>> You could swap the badges around on many cars these days
>> and end up with the same components.
>>
Would you swap your Cee'd for a Dodge Caliber?
Thought not.
Could you easily tell the difference in quality of materials and build?
Thought so.
I wouldn't touch anything American with a barge pole.
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I didn't say you had to buy one, and I have driven enough American cars to avoid owning one like the plague. :-)
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 1 Mar 11 at 12:14
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I'd like a Mustang convertible, just to confirm for myself they're rubbish.
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I think if you want to still pay prices for cars which are in any way reasonable, id get used to this kind of link up. There are very few unique platforms/parts these days.
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I can see the Yanks taking to the Fiat - Sorry - Chrysler 500.
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No argument there, Stu, what I'm saying is that this particular one is, I believe, doomed to failure. Very, very poor strategy it seems to me.
Does anyone think that FIAT badged Chryslers are going to sell well enough anyhwere in Europe? Particularly Italy? Looks like they are commiting sales suicide to me.
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...Very, very poor strategy it seems to me....
Agreed.
I think Fiat would would be better off aligning themselves with the likes of Lancia and Ferrari, rather than stodgy old Chrysler.
Unless Fiat think the deal will get them instant access to markets they would otherwise struggle to penetrate.
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Id hazard a guess that there is a sound business reason behind it and neither maker has a reputation at risk as such - look how Audi fare despite a very public link up with Skoda - I dont think people care so long as the car is good.
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"I think Fiat would would be better off aligning themselves with the likes of Lancia and Ferrari, rather than stodgy old Chrysler."
Really? :-)
Lancia to me = rust, unreliability and bad brakes. They stopped selling Lancias in the UK due to their appalling and well deserved reputation...
I am afraid some of the above comments ignore the success of the Aygo/C1/107.
Get the design price reliability right and market it properly and it will succeed. If it's made in Italy it will be an unreliable poc - think Puntos...(Pandas are of course not made in Italy for export to us)
Last edited by: madf on Tue 1 Mar 11 at 13:37
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Get the design price reliability right and market it properly and it will succeed. If it's made in Italy it will be an unreliable poc - think Puntos
>>>>
>>>>>>> what a most silly statement,sometimes i dispair at reading rubbish like this on a forum of people who know better
the punto in any incarnation is superior to most mainstream cars including ford and vauxhall no matter what silly little warranty information you deam to dig up
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Apart from the noisy clutch pedal was sorted without any fuss by the dealer under warranty I've had zero problems with the Panda I've had since new.
But what I love about it the most is :-
Change the head light bulbs? Just uncrew the socket and put a new bulb in, 2 minute job unlike many modern cars where you need to remove the bumpers.
Cambelt - £140 job at a main dealer much less at an indie.
Even the header tank is directly connected to the radiator - no hoses to work loose.
Only thing which looks bad long term is some of the wiring looms look a bit too thin.
The main problem the Puntos suffered from were head gaskets but I believe this has been sorted with better cooling systems on more modern FIATs. I do not know of a single case of head gasket failure on the Panda from spending a year on the Panda forums.
I am not sure if I would want an Italian built FIAT though, my dads Punto had a lot of silly niggles such as the cig light cover which kept falling down but in the 15k-65k miles he had it it never let us down.
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>> Lancia to me = rust, unreliability and bad brakes. They stopped selling Lancias in the
>> UK due to their appalling and well deserved reputation...
>>
Yup, that's why the current Lancia range is Chrysler badged in the UK. Chrysler have a better brand reputation than Lancia there apparently, which gives you a good idea of how highly thought of the Lancia name is.
Over here, where Lancias come with Lancia badges, it does appear that duff brakes and rust are a thing of the past. Reliability is on par with FIAT (i.e. better than French, worse than German). What they have gone for instead is the world's fugliest range (other individual vehicles have been uglier, but I am not aware of one single brand fielding an entire lineup of cars designed by a lunatic on LSD before) and ludicrously overblown "luxury" interiors that make dreadful use of space and are hideously prone to their electronic bits playing up.
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Iffy
I can confirm that Mustang convertibles are rubbish. The two, showroom fresh, I have rented from Hertz in the past couple of years were dire. Sluggish with the 4.0 V6, wallowy and poor materials. However, for a US touring holiday, roof down, they beat just about anything else this side of sensible.
I am still looking to hire a Cobra for two or three weeks without having to give up beer for a year. Could be a long search.
Last edited by: legacylad on Tue 1 Mar 11 at 22:58
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I think Fiat group have nothing to worry about for the forseeable future -->
www.iol.co.za/motoring/latest-launches/alfa-stuns-with-4c-sports-coupe-1.1034334
Phwoar!
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Thread resurrection here...
To all the nay sayers, it appears Mr Marchionne has done well....
(Also the rebadged Dodge Journey has outsold expected volumes by about 3:1)
MILAN (Bloomberg) – Profit at Italian carmaker Fiat more than tripled in the first quarter as Chrysler Group, its U.S. unit, gained market share on demand for its 200 and 300 sedans and helped offset falling revenues from mass-market car sales in Europe.
Earnings before interest, taxes and one-time items, which Fiat calls trading profit, surged to 866 million euros ($1.14 billion) from 251 million euros a year earlier, the carmaker said in a statement on Thursday.
Sales more than doubled to 20.2 billion euros.
Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne is counting on Chrysler, which was consolidated into Fiat's results in June 2011, to propel profit for the group.
The debt crisis in Europe, where Fiat's volume brands lost 500 million euros last year, caused Fiat Group's deliveries in the 27-member EU states plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland to tumble 20 percent in the first quarter, from a year earlier, to 217,434 vehicles, industry association ACEA said this month.
Without Chrysler, the carmaker's results for the quarter would have been break-even, Fiat said in Thursday's statement.
"Chrysler performed strongly and represented again the bulk of Fiat's overall trading profit, as losses in the European market continued," Jochen Gehrke, an equity analyst at Deutsche Bank AG in Frankfurt, said prior to the earnings release.
Fiat fell as much as 2.6 percent to 3.83 euros and was down 1.4 percent as of 15:15 CET in Milan trading. Fiat is the second-worst performer in the 14-member Euro Stoxx autos and parts index after PSA/Peugeot-Citroen over the past 12 months.
VW profit
Fiat currently owns 58.5 percent of Chrysler, and Marchionne, 59, plans to merge the two manufacturers to boost sales to more than 100 billion euros by 2014 to challenge Volkswagen, currently the No. 2-selling global automaker after General Motors.
VW Group reported a 10 percent gain in first-quarter operating profit to 3.21 billion euros Thursday, beating analysts' estimates. Sales rose 26 percent to 47.3 billion euros, boosted by demand for the Audi A6 and A8 luxury sedans.
VW Group's performance contrasts with other European competitors.
On Wednesday, PSA, the region's second-biggest carmarker, said sales fell 7.3 percent to 14.3 billion euros in the first quarter. France's Renault reported a 9 percent decline in revenue to 9.54 billion euros in the quarter.
Fiat, which shut down a factory in Sicily at the end of last year, froze new investment in Europe and postponed the introduction of new models because the company doesn't anticipate a demand recovery until at least next year.
Marchionne sees a "painful" restructuring needed for European carmakers, including plant closures and job cuts, to reduce an estimate 20 percent excess of capacity in the region, he said last month.
Read more: www.autonews.com/article/20120426/ANE/304269788#ixzz1tDgfaMXv
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The Fiat brand in Europe will continue to do what it does best and produce cracking small cars. I think Rattle is right and that many Fiat group cars will be badged as Chrysler brand cars in the States to give them a higher profile. Lancia's are branded Chryslers here as, unlike Alfa and Fiat,the Lancia name has never lost its taint from the 70s rustbucket days.
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FIAT/Chrysler strategy - movilogo
