Giorgetto Giugiaro sold out to the tedeschi at Volkswagen. Bertone is teaching budding Chinese car designers in brutally cold Changchun. And now, the last vestige of inspired Italian car design is on the auction block: Pininfarina . Actually, they had hired the Italian investment bank Banca Leonardo in August 2009, but they took their time. Now, the bidding is getting serious. And guess who wants to take Pininfarina home. Read More >
The rescue of Chrysler is making great strides. Sergio Marchionne today presented union officials an audacious plan. Powered by an investment of $1.3b, Chrysler and Fiat will build Alfa Romeos and Jeeps under one huge roof. The roof is in Mirafiori, Italy. Also known as the Fiat factory in Torino. And who will pay for all that? Fiat will pay 60 percent. Chrysler will pay 40 percent. Read More >
Luca di Montezemolo testing the New Stratos from New Stratos on Vimeo.
Ferrari Chariman Luca Di Montezomolo recently got a spin in Michael Stoschek’s homage to the Lancia Stratos, possibly one of the rarest treats in the car game just now. And even though it’s neither a Lancia nor a Stratos, anyone would be thrilled to drive one before they’re all locked into some climate-controlled bunker somewhere. But that’s not all Luca has to be thankful for: with a disastrous 2010 F1 season behind it, Ferrari is the center of speculation that Fiat will sell it off as it moves towards closer ties with Chrysler Group. Freedom from Fiat might mean an end to Lancia-branded one-offs based on Ferrari platforms, but given the depth of Fiat’s gamble on Chrysler, Ferrari would probably prefer to watch from a distance anyway. In fact, the only thing Luca probably isn’t thankful for this week is direct competition from the McLaren MP4-12C, which is launching at almost the exact same price as the 458 Italia.
Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, via its investment vehicle AMubadala Development Co, has sold back its 5 per cent stake in Ferrari to Fiat. It’s not that the sheiks were tired of Ferrari. Fiat wanted their shares back. Fiat had an option that gave it the right to buy back the stake that Mubadala had acquired in 2005 from Mediobanca, Italy’s largest investment bank for €114 million, domain-b reports.
Fiat paid €122m ($167m) to buy back the stock. Now their holdings climbed from 85 percent to 90 percent. Why would you want 90 percent in a small sports car maker if you already have 85 percent, and you need every penny of cash? Read More >
When Fiat started to get a grip on Chrysler, there was very little chance of success. But to be fair, they are making a go of it. Sergio Marchionne is doing his best to integrate Fiat and Chrysler. Is he really? Read More >
The need to expand automotive brands while improving fuel economy is driving automakers to some interesting lengths of late. From GM future concepts that have more in common with a Segway than a Cruze, to Honda’s U-3X and Chrysler’s ill-fated PeaPod, automakers are sending strong hints that the future will be smaller and decidedly less car-like. And MINI and Smart recently took this trend to its logical conclusion, each announcing that they would build (or, more precisely, re-brand) scooters… or as they call them, “alternative mobility concepts.” Which raises the question: what’s a scooter brand to do? Well, Piaggio, maker of the Vespa and other scooter-based “alternative mobility concepts” isn’t going to just drone off into that good night, and it’s fighting back by creating an “alternative” to its core scooter products: a four wheeled car-like “mobility concept.”
Even though Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne’s disparaging comments about its over-reliance on Italian manufacturing have opened the door for more US manufacturing opportunities, United Auto Workers boss Bob King wants to make it clear that he won’t be taking advantage of Fiat’s rift with its Italian unions. Fiat tells Automotive News [sub] that failure to secure Italian union agreement with its new manufacturing plan could send increased production to Serbia, Poland and even the United States. King’s response [via Michigan Public Radio]:
They (automakers) won’t be pitting one worker in one country against another. We’re going to be part of working with our global partners in other unions and building a global middle class – and rebuild the American middle class, really.
Yes, in the brutally competitive international labor market, there is a way for everyone to win… really.
Is Sergio Marchionne’s Italy-dissing getting your weekend down? Check out the Italian rebuttal, courtesy of Ferrari’s 458 Italia Challenge, the road-racer version of Maranello’s game-changing supercar. Italy may not buy enough Puntos and Pandas to keep its unions and mass-market brands happy, but it still knows how to produce some of the most viscerally intoxicating automobiles around. And when it comes to weekend entertainment, that’s good enough for us.
Fiat could do more if it could cut off Italy
Having been handed a bankruptcy-rinsed Chrysler by the American government, Fiat’s Canadian-born CEO Sergio Marchionne is beginning to see Italy as nothing more than aging, uncompetitive factories and troublesome unions. And now he’s not just telling the Italian media that not only would Fiat be better off without the country that birthed it. According to Reuters
The CEO added that not a single euro of the 2 billion euros ($2.8 billion) of trading profit that Fiat is targeting for 2010 will come from Italy, where all Fiat car passenger plants are loss-making.
The funny part: Chrysler still holds a value of precisely zero dollars on Fiat’s balance book. And with the Fiat and Alfa-Romeo brands headed to the US, Italian-ness is still an important element of Fiat’s identity. But until Marchionne’s Chrysler revival and Italian invasion take hold stateside, and as long as mother Italia is a drain on its resources, Fiat might be best described as a Brazilian company.
Italian speakers can enjoy Marhionne’s interview here.
It’s easy to see why Sergio is feeling mighty pleased with himself. Fiat is predicted to turn a €400 million profit this year (that’s about $556m) and Fiat is expanding in Brazil, a huge car market. So can some of this good fortune rub off onto Chrysler? Possibly 35 percent of it can, if Sergio has his way.
The Freep reports that Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Fiat and Chrysler, has told analysts that Fiat is planning to raise its stake in Chrysler from 20 percent to 35 percent by the end of next year “barring unforeseen circumstances”. A big vote of confidence, indeed. When Fiat took its initial stake in Chrysler, it was given the option to increase its stake by 5 percent tranches, provided it could meet certain goals. Read More >
China isn’t the only big economy coming to play (sorry to burst your bubble, Herr Schmitt). [ED:No bubble. India is 10-15 years behind China, but they will definitely be next. China and India added will be a monster.] Just across the border, India is rising up and quickly, too. Car makers are desperately scrambling to get a foothold in the Indian market. And like the Chinese market, everyone is enjoying record growth in India. Well, almost everybody. Read More >
New car registrations in Italy fell 18.9 percent in September to 154,429 vehicles. Of course that means major pain for Fiat, which holds about 30 percent of the market. Actually, more than major pain: Fiat’s sales in their home market cratered by 26.3 percent to just 44,161 vehicles in September. That according to Transport Ministry data, published by Reuters. And what did Sergio Marchionne have to say to that disaster? Read More >
A few weeks ago, one of our overabundance of resident Germans wrote about how Volkswagen wanted to marry the Italian bride, Signorina Alfa Romeo. The project was colloquially called “Italian dressing” (Those Germans and their crazy sense of humor(!)). But it was soon dismissed as a throwaway comment from a company hell-bent by taking over ze vorld. Well, now Piech himself is getting involved, and if Piech wants something … Read More >
Did you know that Champagne, as we know it, wasn’t invented by the French? It was invented by the British. Christopher Merret documented the addition of sugar and molasses to a finished wine to create the bubbles in Champagne. This was six years before Dom Perignon (the supposed creator of Champagne) went to the Abbey of Hautvillers. And 40 years before Benedictine supposedly created Champagne. Merret presented his paper to the Royal Society which detailed the process now known as méthode Champenoise in 1662. Did that surprise you? Now check this out… Read More >
Despite not having spent a dime on the US firm, Fiat is widely credited with “rescuing” Chrysler. Here’s another way of looking at it: the United States taxpayers bailed out Fiat, an Italian firm with no presence in the US market. For no money down, Fiat got a 20 percent stake in a Chrysler that, although troubled, had been rinsed clean in bankruptcy. Now, analysts looking at Fiat’s spin-off of its automotive unit are telling Automotive News [sub] that
Fiat’s 20 percent stake in Chrysler, currently with a zero book value, is the biggest positive element seen by analysts for the new Fiat S.p.A., which will comprise the Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Ferrari and Maserati car brands when it starts trading on Jan. 3. Fiat’s truck and tractor units will be spun off on the same day into a new unit called Fiat Industrial S.p.
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