If Fiat plans to bring the Punto Abarth 500C to the states, get ready for some real fun in the small car segment. We can only hope Sergio includes this little beast as part of his North American plan for Fiat/Chrysler.

From AutoGuide.com:

Fiat’s performance-minded Abarth brand will unveil two new models, based off of Fiat products that were introduced last year. Up first is the Abarth 500C, an upgraded version of the Fiat 500C (the C, standing for convertible). The car isn’t technically a convertible, but rather features a retractable cloth top and retains the roof rails. Power comes from Fiat’s turbocharged 1.4-liter 4-cylinder with 140-hp, allowing for a 0-62 mph time of 7.9 seconds. Also included are upgraded wheels, brakes, a new suspension setup, aero kit and stylish two-tone paint scheme. There’s no official word, but we’re likely to see this model join Fiat’s lineup in North America in the next several years – after the standard 500 and 500C are introduced.

Read the full article here.

With all the talk about the lack of product for Chrysler and Dodge, the Detroit Free Press takes a harder look and some feel there is a lot more in the works than most give credit. In the next 12 to 18 months, look for a totally new experience when you enter a Chrysler/Dodge/Fiat showroom. The Chrysler comeback might be closer to reality than most of us could have imagined.

We feel the barometer will be how well the Fiat 500 performs when hitting the showroom floors later this year!

We all know Chrysler won’t reap the benefits of its alliance with Fiat until 2012, but that doesn’t mean the cupboard is bare. To the contrary.

This year, Chrysler plans to introduce three new vehicles that are acknowledged leaders in their segments and one new model that gets it into a growing and potentially lucrative new market.

The first Fiat model, the 500, will also arrive, giving Chrysler dealers a sophisticated and chic little car that’s smaller and considerably less expensive than the Mini Cooper.

Read the full article here.

The folks at Chrysler/Fiat have to be excited about the news that the Fiat 500 will go into production in Mexico this December! This little machine is an eye grabber and can’t come soon enough for the dealerships that will well it as a Fiat 500. The competition with the Ford Fiesta and Chevy Cruze should make for some good sport. I hear some of the salespeople at Chrysler dealerships are already comparing Marchionne to the legendary Lee Iacocca! Time will tell but hey, nothing like setting the bar high!

From AutoNews.com:

TOLUCA, Mexico (Reuters) — Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said Chrysler will invest $550 million in Mexico to begin production of the compact Fiat 500 model car.

The investment will retool a production site developed by Chrysler, which emerged from bankruptcy in June under the management control of Fiat. The investment will allow the plant outside Mexico City to begin production by December, said Marchionne, who also heads Fiat.

Read full article here.

We are very interested to check out the new offering from Fiat/Chrysler with a Lancia badge. If it’s anything like the Delta that would be a great first step in introducing the new brand to potential U.S. customers.

From AutoGuide.com:

Contrary to previous reports that Chrysler will not present any new models at the Detroit Auto Show in just a few weeks, there is now word that the struggling U.S. automaker will show a new car based on a Lancia platform. The Lancia badge is a sub-brand under Fiat, which now runs Chrysler.

There is no word on what sort of a vehicle it will be, but Fiat is eager to help Chrysler where it needs help most – in the small and mid-size car market. This new model would be the first idea of how Fiat intends to integrate its European designs into the North American marketplace.

Read the full article here.

The buzz around Chrysler has been very negative, so it’s rather surprising to here CEO Sergio Marchionne express such confidence about the prospects for the company.

After a four-month deep dive into the workings of Chrysler Group LLC, Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne remains convinced the automaker can be profitable in two years.

The Auburn Hills automaker is on track to divulge its five-year plan on Nov. 4, to make public its quarterly financial statements next year and to offer public stock as early as 2011, he said.

A recent report by analyst Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley supports Marchionne’s forecast. Jonas said Chrysler could report an operating profit of $841 million in 2010, but end the year with a net loss of $169 million. Full profitability is expected in 2011: $2.48 billion in operating profit and $952 million in net income, Jonas said.

In an interview with Toronto’s Globe and Mail, Marchionne affirmed Thursday that the automaker could reach profitability in 24 months. Just a week before, the CEO contended that “we’re not bleeding as people think we are,” noting that “the level of cost consciousness at this house is probably at a historical high.”

Some had been speculating that Chrysler might not make it another year given its challenges in the market. Marchionne had fueled some of the negative speculation when he said in September that the situation at Chrysler was “worse than we thought.”

Marchionne has an incredible track record as a turnaround specialist, but Chrysler will present the ultimate challenge. The acquisition could be a stroke of genius, as Fiat paid nothing and now owns 20% of the company with full control in exchange for the contribution of small-car technology. Fiat dominates with small cars and this offer it the opportunity to return to America. They also have Alfa Romeo which presents an upscale brand.

That said, it was reported recently that there would be a new push to turn Chrysler into an upscale brand positioned a notch above Lincoln and Cadillac. As noted by many analysts, that seems like a real stretch. Chrysler is a mess, so now consumers are supposed to start paying a premium for their cars?

In any event, it’s refreshing to hear some optimism coming from Marchionne. Hopefully he can back it up.

I’m not sure I’m buying this. The article cited here goes on to speculate that Sergio Marchionne is setting things up to make more drastic changes.

The situation at recently rescued Chrysler Group is even more dire than first thought, the CEO of Italy’s Fiat — which came to the aid of the U.S. automaker — said Wednesday.

“We were surprised by how little had been done in the past 24 months,” Sergio Marchionne told reporters in Frankfurt, Germany.

Chrysler will present a revised business plan in November, Marchionne told reporters.

“We have to be absolutely clear about what we want to do with Chrysler and, as a management team, where the organization is going to be in five years,” Marchionne said, according to the industry newspaper Automotive News.

Unlike General Motors, which has continued to roll out new and redesigned products even as it entered and exited bankruptcy, Chrysler has had little to tout. Its most recent new market entries are the Dodge Challenger muscle car — essentially a re-bodied Dodge Charger sedan — and the Ram pick-up.

The only new product Chrysler has entering the market this year is an industrial-duty version of the Ram truck. After that, a new version of the Jeep Grand Cherokee mid-sized SUV isn’t expected until the middle of next year.

The economy is very important. If car sales can continue to rebound, then the margin for error is greater for Fiat.

Fiat has already announced that they will bring the Fiat 500 to Chrysler showrooms in the U.S. in 2010, and now they’ve announced that the Alfa Romeo MiTo will also be available in America next year.

“The MiTo is going to help us re-establish the Alfa brand in the United States,” said Richard Gadeselli, vice president for communications of the Fiat Group, in a recent interview at the company’s headquarters here.

Though Alfa Romeo left the American market in 1995, the MiTo hatchback will not really be the first new Alfa to appear in the United States since then. The 8C Competizione and Spider have been available through select Ferrari and Maserati dealers since last year. Considering the stratospheric prices of the limited-edition, hand-built 8C, the MiTo will be the first new Alfa intended for general audiences.

Both the MiTo and the 500 will be sold at Chrysler — not Ferrari — dealerships, though they will still wear Alfa and Fiat badges. American-market prices have not been announced, but $20,000 or so seems likely for the MiTo and mid-teens for the 500.

The new Alfa is aimed at “an active, thrill-seeking, performance-minded 20-something.”

I think this is a great move by Fiat. The Fiat 500 and the MiTo will give Chrysler dealerships hip vehicles that appeal to younger drivers who like the Mini Cooper and other small imports. The marketing campaign should be fun to watch.

Now that it has emerged from bankruptcy with the help of the American taxpayer, Chrysler needs to make small cars efficiently to survive. Fiat will be a huge help with its contribution of small-engine technology, but it looks like Chrysler can learn efficient production techniques from Fiat’s factory in Tychy, Poland.

The mammoth Fiat plant here, which churned out nearly half a million cars last year, may hold some of the answers for Chrysler (as well as Ford Motor and General Motors), as it struggles to regain its footing after its bankruptcy and reduce its dependence on muscle-bound trucks and sport utility vehicles.

For those who remember Fiat before its ignominious retreat from the American market — the name was said to stand for “Fix It Again, Tony” — the Italian automaker may seem an unlikely role model. It left the United States in the early 1980s after widespread quality problems.

But Fiat itself has undergone a revolution under Sergio Marchionne, who became its chief executive in 2004, raising standards for quality and reliability at plants like Tychy and mastering the art of building smaller cars with high efficiency. Chrysler hopes he can do the same thing for it now that he has assumed control of the American company.

“We are lucky there is a crisis,” said the director of the Tychy plant, Zdzislaw Arlet, unable to resist a gibe at the bigger cars and trucks that have traditionally stolen the industry spotlight. “Everybody wants to build small cars now.”

At Tychy (pronounced TICK-ee), one secret is flexibility: The latest robotic technology is balanced by workers who can quickly shift models to match demand. That is one reason Tychy is operating around the clock, six days a week, while most other auto plants in Europe and the United States are running at a fraction of capacity, increasing costly nonproductive downtime.

Marchionne has proven that he’s a great car guy, and there’s reason to be optimistic about his ability to transform Chrysler. With this visit the process has begun.

Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne said he needed scale to compete, and now he’s plowing forward in China.

The Fiat Group announced a 50-50 joint venture on Monday with the Guangzhou Automobile Group to make cars and engines for the Chinese market, the latest move by the Italian automaker to expand outside its home market.

The companies said they would build a 173-acre plant in Changsha, in Hunan province, at a cost of more than $556 million, with production to begin by late 2011.

Upon completion of the first phase of development, the venture will have the capacity to make 140,000 cars and 220,000 engines a year.

The companies said capacity at the plant, which will make fuel-efficient, low-emission vehicles, could eventually be increased to 250,000 cars and 300,000 engines a year.

Sergio Marchionne, Fiat’s chief executive, has described the world’s carmakers as being in a struggle for survival, with only those of sufficient scale and efficiency capable of riding out the crisis. Fiat, which had revenue last year of $83 billion, acquired a controlling 20 percent stake in Chrysler Group LLC in June to gain access to the North American market.

The Guangzhou Automobile Group, a state-owned holding company, had 2008 revenue of $16 billion.

The company, which has joint ventures with major partners including Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp., said it delivered more than 530,000 cars to customers last year.

Fiat has been looking for a new Chinese partner since it terminated a venture with Nanjing Auto in late 2007. A planned joint venture with Chery Automobile, China’s largest domestic carmaker, was to start production this year, but the project was put on indefinite hold in March.

Marchionne also said that Fiat is still interested in Opel as well.

The Detroit News is reporting that another bidder has emerged for GM’s Opel unit.

General Motors Corp. has increased its negotiating options for its German subsidiary Adam Opel GmbH by obtaining a second offer from Beijing Automotive Industry Corp.

GM already is in talks to transfer control of cash-strapped Opel to a consortium led by Canadian supplier Magna International Inc. after concluding a preliminary deal on May 30.

But those discussions have hit stumbling blocks, with negotiators unable to agree on issues such as safeguards for GM and Opel proprietary technology.

GM continued talking to other potential partners, and GM spokesman Chris Preuss told Bloomberg News on Friday that Beijing Automotive had submitted an offer for Opel.

He did not elaborate except to say that it was a nonbinding proposal, like Magna’s.

Preuss said the talks with Magna remain on track.

Italy’s Fiat SpA and Brussels-based RHJ International SA also have expressed an interest in taking a stake in Opel. GM is also in talks with RHJ, an industrial holding company.

But Magna’s proposal prevailed in May, with both GM and the German government viewing it as the best solution for Opel. Berlin’s view matters because the German government is providing financial aid to Opel and trying to shield the Rüsselsheim-based carmaker from GM’s troubles.

The entire industry is being turned on its head, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.