Posted on 10/24/2009 4:46:53 PM PDT by jamese777
As part of the Fiat - Chrysler alliance, the Italian carmaker will bring several new models in the United States but the 500 mini car will be the only one to be sold under the Fiat badge. The car is going to be produced by Chrysler in Mexico and, according to people close to the matter, the US-based former bankrupt automaker has already required suppliers to make sure that their parts are enough for around 100,000 Fiat 500.
The Fiat 500 produced in Mexico will be sold in the US, Canada and South America, Bloomberg reported, with initial production goals pointing to 104,000 to 120,000 vehicles per year.
"We don"t think it will be priced much lower than the Mini Cooper, and if that is the case we think it will have a fairly limited appeal," he said.
Previous rumors hinted that Fiat will initially sell a limited volume of 500 mini cars in the United States and will deliver them to customers through Chrysler's dealership network. However, it's still unclear how many stores will actually offer the model in Chrysler's domestic market.
"The Fiat 500 - we see that, like the Mini, as a sort of boutique car that we think we can sell in good numbers on the East and West coasts in the same way that Mini has been successful in the U.S.," Richard Gadeselli, vice president of Fiat communications in Italy, said earlier this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at autoevolution.com ...
Take that, UAW
Oh, I am sure that Chrysler’s business model is going to make its stock just soar!!!!
New production in Mexico. Are those jobs part of the millions of jobs The Joker promised to save or create?
When will people wake up to the fact that the president can’t create jobs except for bureaucrat jobs for probing into the lives of decent people?
Sell them here, make them here. It’s what’s for dinner.
Yeah, but what a mealy-mouthed, generic looking car it is.
Bwaaaaaaahaaaaaaahaaaaaaa!!! bb
FIAT bought a dealership network at a fire sale.
The headline for this thread is spelled just about right! Crysler instead of Chrysler because there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth! Just like Nash and Romney’s daddy’s American Moters rambled right off the scene in the 1960’s!!! (and alla Henry J. Kaiser/Frasers in the 1950’s)(my favorite was Willy’s which is now buried with Crysler/Fiat)
Fix It Again Tony.
The UAW owns, what, 17% of Chrysler? So they're screwing themselves to pay themselves?
The Community organizer will have us looking like Mexico by the end of his term.
If you were a manufacturer who could build in one jurisdiction or an adjacent jurisdiction, and the first jurisdiction was considering a number of variants of health care reform that would increase the cost of labor significantly, why wouldn’t you elect to build in the adjacent jurisdiction - embed the labor in the finished car or major sub-assemblies, then import?
Doesn’t anyone consider that the recovery will be delayed by jobs NOT being created the US out of fear that once the health care reform regime is decided on - it will make labor considerably more expensive? The choice is the substitution of capital for labor - either you apply more automation and less labor or you move the labor consumption offshore.
Ha ha, pricing a Fiat near the price of a Mini Cooper. Good luck with that. The last experience Americans had with Fiat was trying to get their cars home from the dealership before they fell apart and/or rusted away. It may not be true now, but it takes a long time to build a reputation, or fix one. BTW, I’m glad to see that this will be putting more Americans to work - North Americans. What a disappointment.
It will sell - in San Francisco, and maybe Miami.
They can skip having dealerships in Nebraska, Alabama or Montana.
I shoulda ping you guys to that reply. You’re both old enough to remember the Willy’s without gittin the willies!!!
Will it come loaded with drugs?
Keywords..."had" and "once"
FWIW they DID get 54 As a former R-16 owner I admittedly have a soft spot in my...head....for Fine French Automobiles....sigh...shoot me.
prisoner6
Now that’s funny...in a sick sort of way.
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