With the exception of exotics like Ferraris and Maseratis, the U.S. has been a cold harbor for Italian cars.
The last Alfa Romeos and Fiats were sold here over 30 years ago and neither brand, while popular elsewhere, was able to make inroads for obvious reasons: While Alfas were cute (think of Benjamim Braddock zipping around in his Spider in The Graduate), they were quirky and unreliable. Fiats weren’t even cute and there was no market for mini-cars, while the dealer networks for both marques were thin and parts were sometimes hard to come by.
But Fiat, which bailed out Chrysler last year after Daimler Benz asked for and got a divorce, is trying again in the form of the Fiat 500, a mini whose closest competitor is BMW Group’s Mini Cooper.
If early sales are any indication, Fiat has laid yet another egg.
Automotive News reports that through Octobe, fewer than 16,000 units of the 500 had been sold, significantly behind Fiat’s 50,000-unit full-year goal. Meanwhile, 47,050 Mini Coopers were snapped up through the first 10 months of the year.
Yet again, the biggest reason is that while the under-the-skin mechanicals of the 500 are up to date, the design is long-in-tooth, so long that it’s easy to imagine Sophia Loren driving around Rome in one in some 1960s-era movie.
Making matters worse, not unlike the government of the mother country, FIAT USA is in flux. It has been slow to assemble a dealer network and recently replaced the head of its stateside operations with someone “who will bring a fresh perspective,” according to a Fiat press release.
Translation: We’re blowing it.