Fiat has long been Italy’s predominant industrial business and the Agnelli Family have ruled the roost. In recent years the company has been run by chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne, who has this week won the approval of the shareholders to split Fiat’s industrial businesses away from the car manufacturing units. The plan is for Fiat to combine the car brands, notably Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Maserati and Ferrari, while a new company called Fiat Industrials will be created as a separate entity to manufacture Iveco trucks and various other brands of farming and construction equipment. Fiat Industrial will list on the Milan stock exchange next year and will be independent of Fiat, with its own management board. The company chairman is now John Elkann, who is believed to be in favour of the move, which will help Fiat to complete its merger with Chrysler.
Fiat intends to relaunch Chrysler with a string of new car launches and redesigned models in the course of the next two years. The programme will include the revamped Chrysler Sebring, which is to be renamed the Chrysler 200. Dodge has been given a new logo and is being aimed at a younger market with a redesigned Avenger and a new Charger, and there will be a Fiat-based small car to be known as the Nitro. The Jeep is also going to get another makeover. The Chrysler brand will be faded out in Europe, while Fiat models will be introduced carefully in the US, although there will be much Italian technology and style in the future Chrysler models.
Quite how all of this impacts on Ferrari remains to be seen, but in reality the company is self-sufficient.
joeblogsf1 
Fiat-Chrysler have already released details and photoshop images of the US spec Fiat 500 for the US market as well. Looks a bit odd though, its a 1.4 Sport like we have, but with the Abarth front and rear wings.
Have also heard rumours of a Fiat based Jeep, most likely to be based upon the Panda 4×4/Cross. Although I doubt that would be with the 1.2 8v or the 1.3diesel that we have now.
With regard to the Chrysler brand in Europe, well the company is technically being merged with Lancia so models like the 300c will become a Lancia in the EU, except for the UK where Lancia is a dead brand while Chrysler at least has a presence, if small.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised — no, shocked — by the way Sergio Marchionne has taken the reins of Chrysler and demonstrated a serious commitment to revitalising a company that looked likely to be asset-stripped into oblivion little more than a year ago.
And it’s more than clever repackaging of Chrysler’s finances or marketing — the Multi-Air technology is terrific, will earn them a mint from licencing, and prove to be a major contribution to the transition to clean vehicles over the next couple of decades.
I also expect Marchionne to gently steer Ferrari away from its stated antipathy to green technology toward becoming a real factor in developing green high-performance cars and making green appealing to enthusiasts around the world.
If they can produce a FIAT here in the US which has even close to the MPG figures you guys enjoy in Europe (60 +mpg) they will sell bucketloads.
We needed them years ago.
Joester,
Must complement you on writing articles that are fresh , insightful & unique. Not easy to do in the era of news aggregaters & copycat recyclers of the same sound byte. This info makes me wish I was younger & figuring out my career path as you are providing a very straight forward way for someone to enter the sport on a working level. Thanks for demystifying things for the youngsters(great info!) someone may end up inspired & in a great field because of your insight & generous spirit. Your break served you well, “unplugging” is important
As an American, I firmly believe this will be disastrous and will finally bring Chrysler down. The cars FIAT brought to the US years ago were so wretched (“What does FIAT stand for? Fix It Again Tony”) that rehabilitating the brand here is simply not possible.
When Yanks find out their Chryslers have FIAT parts or engines in them, they will run away in droves.
The only hope for Chrysler is that the Italian govt has been propping up much of the country’s (bankrupt) industry sector for decades, so perhaps they will keep this turkey afloat for a while. Clearly, the US govt’s recent bailouts are so unpopular here that bailouts from Washington are a thing of the past.
There’s something about this separation that doesn’t seem like the wisest move. Daimler still has its Truck and Industrial divisions, and that probably helps stabilize the business when car sales fall off. Volvo trucks and Industrial stayed Swedish owned while now Volvo cars are just a part of Geely?
I think although it made sense to some in investment banking and business geniuses, thought it was a great idea for Chrysler, Ford, and GM to focus only on consumer cars. Would they have weathered downturns in car sales if there were other business lines that bouyed there overall sales?
Think that the car line would become more staid, designed by committee if the safety net provided by the industrial, agricultural, and commercial industries were separated out and possible sold.
Aside from some of the auto parts manufactured by FIAT group, is there any possibility that FIAT would be viewed as some type of monopoly, or subject to anti-trust concerns?