By Robert Farago
June 27, 2009
“This weekend we’ll be choosing which Chrysler [factory] we’ll be using to produce the Fiat 500 aimed at the US market” said the CEO of Fiat Group, Sergio Marchionne. “We shall probably produce the full Alfa Romeo range. The reason why we’ve slowed on the brand’s development was to follow the US situation. Now that we’ve clarified the Chrysler dossier, we know what to do in order to link up to their distribution network and we can actually offer the full range of products. The new 147 will be coming out next year and will go into production in Cassino this year, so we’ll be seeing it at the Geneva Show in 2010. A whole series of vehicle developments will follow on from this. We shall probably also be making the so-called crossover, the new 69, when the Alfa flagship comes out, but on a platform shared with Chrysler. The whole range will be re-designed.”
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POWERED
June 27th, 2009 at 9:54 am
The new 69? Are they serious?
June 27th, 2009 at 10:25 am
“We shall probably produce the full Alfa Romeo range.”
Huh.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:37 am
I guess that kills any hope of an Imperial in my future…
June 27th, 2009 at 10:46 am
I’m not a friend of Fiatlser… but they make things happen and don’t rest… unlike GM.
Since they have my money now anyway, I wish them good luck.
i could imagine they will be successful. At least more successful than Chrysler before..
June 27th, 2009 at 10:50 am
OK, here’s a dumb question.
Ford Five Hundred.
Fiat 500.
Does Ford still have the rights to “Five Hundred”? If so, do they care?
Are “500″ and “Five Hundred” technically different so it’s a moot point? Could someone sell a “Three Twenty Five” or a “Gee Eight”?
June 27th, 2009 at 11:10 am
A better question for those of us that like cars is how much different the US built Fiats and Alfas will be from the originals. Not specifically questioning quality but content. Which engines will get lost in translation, will the suspensions be softened, will they allow the huge range of fun colors on the 500? A historic Italian restaurant will still fail if all they serve is Americanized spaghetti and meatballs when people expect risotto and salumi.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:42 am
nmchese: +1
Will Fiat do to the 500 what SmartUSA did for the Smart, ie., ruin it? And when they do, will the refuse to see the dumb things they did?
I’m so bitter…and cynical.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:46 am
I wonder if Ford can object or block the name based on the old “Galaxie 500″ nameplate?
June 27th, 2009 at 11:51 am
@Mattstairs –
IANAL, but the general rule is you can’t trademark a common name or a number. That’s why Intel went from “486″ to “Pentium” some years ago: competing chip makers were putting similar numbers in their processor chip names. So Ford and Fiat are both probably OK with a variant of “500.”
If there are any lawyers among the B&B, I love to read something authoratative.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Abarth! Abarth! Abarth!
June 27th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Sounds great like a great plan, Sergio, albeit lacking in a lot of details. So, please tell us what’s going on until all these cars get developed, suppliers get contracts, factories get tooled, workers trained, etc. Or in other words, what’s going to keep Cry-slur doors open for the couple of years?
June 27th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
new caledonia,
Porsche 911 was originally to be named 901. But Peugeot had already trademarked zero in the middle, so Porsche had to go with 911. Same with Volvo, originally they wanted to call model S4, but Audi had that trademark, so Volvo went with S40. Also in Canada (at least) BMW won court battle against Infiniti. Infiniti was using M6 for marketing G35 Coupe with 6-speed manual transmission. http://www.autoblog.com/2007/03/20/bmw-beats-infiniti-in-battle-over-m/
On the other hand there was BMW 323 and Mazda 323 and nobody complained.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
This is rich. FIAT building cars in Chrysler factories. Almost reads like a story from the Onion.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
I f i had trademarked all numbers I’d be rich. Or the alphabet. didn’t Mercedes once fight with Volvo about the “S”?
I don’t think Apple would have the right to own the word “pod”since it existed before, but someone “owning”the alphabet or all numbers is just ridiculous. (unless i would own it and everyone would have to pay me :-)
June 27th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Mattstairs,
Mercedes 500; Dodge Polara 500; Numbers can’t be tied up like names.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Man, I love that photo.
Makes me want to go out to the backyard and chop down a few trees, and then park the cars nearby so the whole family can get dressed to the nines and gather around some unknown instrument in a leather-bound box.
June 27th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Boy those “cars” will sell well here in Weeksville, North Carolina. Where could you even find a shotgun rack to fit this thing?
June 27th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
And you can bet this plant will go up North in one of the blue states.
The Detroit 3 have only the Arlington GM plant left in the South.
Should be a big boost for Toyonda.
June 27th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Infiniti also lost the fight to stop Audi from using the “Q” names. Germans 2, Infiniti 0.
June 27th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
GS650G :
This is rich. FIAT building cars in Chrysler factories. Almost reads like a story from the Onion.
18 months ago, Fiatsler would have been too weird for The Onion.
bluecon:
And you can bet this plant will go up North in one of the blue states.
+1.
But imagine… If Marchionne DID decide to open in a right-to-work state (with non-UAW labor?!?) — the hand wringing, bleating, wadded panties and overall political train wreck on Capitol Hill would be priceless to watch.
June 27th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Thanks for the replies on the trademark use of alphanumerics versus names. Makes sense now.
At least Alfa Romeo is coming back to the US. Although an Alfa CUV makes about as much sense as a Saab SUV.
BuzzDog +1
Not sure what those folks are doing in that field.
June 27th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
I thought this was going to be the Toluca plant?
June 27th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
This kind of plan trumps the plan of no plan.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
I am not up on all the latest in cars, so I googled a picture of of the Fiat 500 and took a look.
What an ugly piece of trash, it looks like a Hershey’s Kiss without the foil wrapper on it and paper on it. And they want 15K for it? Do they give an axillary set of bike pedals for it?
I would buy a rusted out Plymouth Duster, or even a Dodge Caliber, before I bought that piece of junk. Who in the US will buy that other than maybe an Obama fan?
June 27th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
As far as I know, Ford still has 500 trademarked. And Paul, your examples don’t work because every single one of those models has a letter attached to it.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
bluecon: The Detroit 3 have only the Arlington GM plant left in the South.
Not entirely true. At least for now, GM still has a plant in Shreveport, Louisiana that produces the Chevrolet Colorado and the GMC Canyon, and for a limited time, the Hummer H3. However, it was announced this week that this plant will close by 2012.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
In the seventies my poor father tried to keep one of these running for a while longer by filling the rust holes with polyester. The picture must have been taken before the 500 dealt with its first rainfall…
June 27th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
As far as I know, Ford still has 500 trademarked. And Paul, your examples don’t work because every single one of those models has a letter attached to it.
Well, they could make a point of referring to it, in spoken communication, as the Cinquecento.
The other issue is that Ford uses the 500/Panda platform for the current European Ka, so getting testy about it in North America is iffy.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Build ‘em and rack ‘em. As they’re small it shouldn’t be as expensive to store the unsold inventory in vast Fiatsco car wastelands.
You can probably store double the amount of 500s compared to Sebrings, I guess….
June 28th, 2009 at 5:55 am
“jkumpire :
June 27th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
What an ugly piece of trash, it looks like a Hershey’s Kiss without the foil wrapper on it and paper on it. And they want 15K for it? Do they give an axillary set of bike pedals for it?
I would buy a rusted out Plymouth Duster, or even a Dodge Caliber, before I bought that piece of junk.”
Say what???
http://www.sweatyguineapig.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/hershey_kisses.jpg
You have a very odd taste.
The common view is that the Fiat 500 is no.1 on “the small cars beauty list”.
June 28th, 2009 at 8:13 am
I can’t say that I really care for the looks of any of the current crop of Fiat/Alfa/Lancia vehicles. The 500, like most of the rest of the cars in its class, is just a road-going blob, and about the best I can say for the Alfa lineup is that those triangular noses certainly are distinctive.
June 28th, 2009 at 8:42 am
I’d love to see the Alfa Brera in “the flesh”.
Front:
http://www.italiancar.net/site/features/TestDriveGTvsBrera/lg/alfaBrera_6.jpg
Rear:
http://www.italiancar.net/site/features/TestDriveGTvsBrera/lg/alfaBrera_7.jpg
It’s a bit out of my price range, but the streets of America are getting pretty boring these days; perhaps some well-to-do chaps will give us something nice to look at…
June 28th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I’m guessing the Toledo Jeep plant is a finalist; its a newer highly flexible facility that has capacity potential with Liberty sales down.
June 28th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
If the price is right! – I just might buy one.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
bluecon
You boys like Mexico?!
Chrysler’s Toluca plant is currently producing the PT Cruiser and the Dodge Journey. The PT is getting canned, the Journey could be made in Belvidere (with the Caliber/Compass/Patriot) or Sterling Heights (with the Sebring/Avenger) as well.
My guess is that they’ll move the Journey to Sterling Heights so that plant has something to do besides twiddle its thumbs with the failures that are the Sebring and the Avenger, and Fiat is going to move on into Toluca.
June 28th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
My guess is that they’ll move the Journey to Sterling Heights so that plant has something to do besides twiddle its thumbs with the failures that are the Sebring and the Avenger, and Fiat is going to move on into Toluca.
That is the talk round here as I am only a few miles from both Sterling Stamping and Sterling Assembly. Chrysler did put a lot of $$ into Sterling Assembly so I can it happening. Sterling Stamping…..SH cops always have to go here and bust drug dealers.
This weekend Chrysler LLC covered up those ugly Daimler signs with even uglier tarps that say somethign about “world-class manufacturing”