Fiat Launch "A Tiny Bit Behind"
Bloomberg [via Automotive News [sub]] reports that all 130 planned Fiat USA showrooms will not be opened until September. Initial rollout plans had called for “around 165” dealers, but that number has been dialed back, possibly due to overlap. It’s not clear if the delay will affect Chrysler’s goal of selling 50k Cinquecentos this year, but it probably will considering
About a dozen Fiat franchises have started up and a total of 20 may be open by the end of February, said Laura Soave, head of the Fiat brand for Chrysler.
About 30 to 40 will be open by the middle of March, she said. Chrysler said in September that it wanted Fiat showrooms running by the end of February, adding that it would allow some dealers to open later.
“It’s a tiny bit behind,” Soave said today.
Pre-ordered special editions of the 500 will be delivered to consumers starting in the second week of March, and dealers will begin receiving inventory just weeks thereafter. That means the Fiat dealer net will have to average around 5,555 sales per month to hit the corporate target, and if 100 or so dealers won’t be open until after March, the per-dealer sales target will be tough to hit. But then, with a car like the 500, the question isn’t really how well it sells initially, but whether it has staying power. But that’s another challenge for another year.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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I guess this helps explain why, just a couple of weeks before their claimed launch, they still don't have a working dealer locator on their US website. There were a couple of dealers announced for my area, but neither is open and I no idea how to find out about even ordering a car. Oh well, I guess I'll let others pay the sure-to-be exorbinant "first on the block" surcharges and I'll just wait a while.
It will be interesting to see how many Fiat dealers can survive until more models are available. I'm sure most dealers intend to profit substantially from used car sales. My local Fiat dealer is a former Saturn dealership so they already had a facility without a franchise and I guess any new car franchise is better than none. Having just the 500 to sell is about as close as you can get to not having a franchise.
Couldn't they find a NYC site that had the Chrysler Building prominently in the background? It's little things like that omission that make me wonder if this new merger of equals is going to work out.
I've always felt the Fiat pronouncements didn't meet the reality on the ground, however, the speed and distance traveled by the Chrysler group with its new overlords, whether production, product change or dealer relations, has been dramatic...its closest analog, IMO, is the job Chrysler did with AMC upon acquisition. Fiat's giving it an honest try....but the 500 roll-out issues will continue for months, if not years.