Marchionne Changes Tune on U.S. Fiat Dealers Getting Alfa 4C

When Harald Wester, boss of Fiat’s Alfa Romeo and Maserati units told reporters in September that the new Alfa 4C mid-engine sports car would likely be sold in the U.S. through Maserati's 68-strong dealer network alone instead of Fiat's 210 showrooms as well as originally suggested, he dealt a strong blow to the latter, even though they had never received a letter of intent or an outright promise from Chrysler.

Now, Chrysler-Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has come out to address these concerns by saying the plan is “the best performing Fiat dealers will be the ones that will be entitled to have a crack at Alfa Romeo distribution,” according to an Autonews report.

The issue at hand isn't as much about the 4C itself, of which only about 1,000 units are earmarked for the States, as it is for future products of Alfa and their distribution rights in the country.

For now, Fiat's U.S. dealers will have to make ends meet with whatever products they have.

“Even if we get Alfa tomorrow, we’re not going to get any volume for at least two years,” Gary Brown, chairman of the Chrysler National Dealer Council and a Fiat dealer on Long Island told Autonews. “Our game plan as Fiat dealers is to figure out how to make due with the product that we have and hopefully, there will be more Fiat product on the way in the next few years.”

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Marchionne Promises New 5-Year Plan for Alfa in 2014, RWD/AWD Architecture Under Development

Since 2004, when he became CEO of Fiat, Sergio Marchionne has put forward no less than three revival plans for Alfa Romeo. None of them really worked, so the executive has now promised a new five-year plan that will be revealed in early 2014.

“We continue to work in a pretty determined fashion in trying to reshape the Alfa Romeo platform and I think we will be in a position to outline more at the end of the first quarter of 2014,” Marchionne said during a conference call with analysts.

The five-year strategy for Fiat Group and Chrysler will most likely be revealed in late April 2014 to coincide with the automakers’ first-quarter earnings report.

As far as Alfa Romeo is concerned, the plan is centered around a new rear- and all-wheel-drive platform that is currently under development by a small team of engineers coordinated by Harald Wester, Alfa Romeo and Maserati CEO and Fiat-Chrysler's chief technical officer.

The platform is expected to underpin at least four new Alfa Romeos: the Giulia mid-sized sedan and wagon, a large flagship sedan and a mid-sized SUV. The first of these models is expected to debut in Europe in late 2015 or early 2016. All Alfa models based on this platform will be sold in the U.S. as well.

According to sources quoted by Autonews Europe, Modena-based engineers are working to make the architecture flexible enough to be used by the Chrysler and Dodge brands, more specifically the next generations of the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger sedan, as well as the replacement for the Dodge Challenger coupe.

Alfa Romeo sold 102,000 units last year, less than one-tenth as many cars as BMW and Mercedes-Benz. In the first nine months of this year, Alfa’s European sales fell 30 percent to almost 51,000 units, according to data from industry association ACEA.

By Dan Mihalascu

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Days of Former Glory: 1973 Fiat 130 Coupe eBay Find

If you buy this 1973 Fiat 130 Coupé on eBay, you’ll pay $25,900 / €18,850, then have to go all the way to Dawsonville, Georgia to pick it up (or you can just have it delivered). Before you do that, make sure you have an extra $200 that would go towards purchasing a pair of animal-printed Wayfarers, and an appropriate piece of period French Riviera clothing – just because.

It’s the least you could do as a token of your appreciation for what was, back in the day, a match for any of the German brands’ big coupes. The magazines of the time praised it for its excellent handling, comfortable cabin and, of course, the styling. The latter is the work of Pininfarina, and it made the car quite a bit different to the more simple and restrained sedan.

Never officially imported into the US, and therefore very rare, this blue example is promised to be a clean rust-free runner that has covered just 71,995 miles since new. It’s powered by a 3.2-liter V6 engine that drives the rear wheels through a five-speed manual and made just under 160 hp when new.

The owner, Ivan, says it “is loaded with luxury features such as real wood trims, courtesy lights everywhere, rear shades, adjustable steering, power windows, ZF power steering and dual horns.  There is even a lever for the driver to open the passenger door remotely!”

Photos can be found below.

By Andrei Nedelea

Ed. Note: The seller has ended the listing

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Problems for Fiat as Serbian Plant Halts Production of 500L

As of Wednesday, Fiat's new Kragujevac plant in Serbia has temporarily ceased production of its 500L small MPV, only a couple of months after the car went on sale in the United States this summer.

The reason? According to a Reuters report, the lack of parts as at least one of the plant's suppliers was unable to complete deliveries of components, following an extended strike from displeased workers at a transport company who have blocked railways and roads in the region over unpaid wages.

A Fiat spokesperson confirmed the production halt, but did not say if it was due to the strike. "Production ceased on Wednesday and we still don't know when it will resume," said Fiat spokeswoman Aleksandra Rankovic.

The Kragujevac factory began production of the 500L family of small cars in July of 2012, churning out about 30,000 units until the end of the year, with Fiat expecting to manufacture up to 140,000 cars in 2013.

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Fiat Takes Full Control of Diesel Engine Manufacturer VM Motori from GM

Fiat now has its very own diesel engine division, in the form of freshly acquired company VM Motori. Up until this point of complete acquisition, the Italian engine builder was already half-owned by Fiat, while the other half belonged to General Motors.

The latter gave up all of its shares for a reported €34.1 ($47.1) million – they had been purchased back in 2007, when things were still apparently going well…

Now, the Italian automaker will have complete access to the entire yearly production run of 90,000, though, not all of them are for automotive use. Models such as the newly released Ram 1500 EcoDiesel and the slightly older Jeep Grand Cherokee EcoDiesel do use the three-liter V6 unit. It is competent, but not necessarily a benchmark compared to the array of similar units in use around Europe.

For both Fiat and Chrysler, I don’t think there’s any downside to the deal whatsoever, especially if the diesel market in the US picks up like it has been speculated that it might, and demand grows. In fact, we heard rumors that it may be introducing a diesel version of the 300 sedan to counter the increasingly large number of Euro-derived oil burners ending up on sale in the US, and we can speculate as to the connectedness of it all, but we’ll leave that up to you.

By Andrei Nedelea

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