2024 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Ti on 2040-cars

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Alfa Romeo Stelvio, Giulia Quadrifoglio NRING editions celebrate lap records

Alfa Romeo will bring no less than six star cars to its Geneva Motor Show booth. Since records are not only meant to be broken, but celebrated, the Giulia Quadrifoglio NRING and Stelvio Quadrifoglio NRING limited editions were created to address the latter task. In September 2016, the Giulia Quadrifoglio broke the Nurburgring lap record for standard production four-door sedans with a time of 7:32 — a feat since bettered by the Jaguar XE SV Project 8. Last September, the Stelvio Quadrifoglio set a lap record of 7:32, displacing the Range Rover Sport SVR from the top of the timesheets. The two NRING specials come drenched in exclusive Circuito Grey paint, accented with carbon mirror caps and a CF front badge, on top of carbon ceramic brakes. The cabin's so dark you'll need to let your eyes adjust before picking out the Sparco racing seats with carbon shells, carbon accents on the steering wheel and shift knob, and the red stitching. Both sedan and SUV come optioned with Alfa Connect with 3D Nav infotainment, Harman Kardon premium audio, active cruise control, and tinted windows. The Giulia gets a naked carbon roof. The Italian carmaker's only making 108 of each NRING model, in honor of how long the company's been in business. Throughout that time, Alfa Romeo has stamped its mark on The Green Hell, such as when Tazio Nuvolari won the 1932 German Grand Prix in an 8C 2300 Tipo Monza ahead of his German competition, or in 1966 when a Giulia Sprint GTA was the first GT road car to make it round the 'Ring in under 10 minutes. These Geneva-bound special editions will be reserved "for collectors and the most loyal Alfa Romeo customers." A numbered badge in a carbon fiber dashboard insert will identify the owner's place in line. Two more special editions, also held to 108 examples, come in the guises of a 4C Competizione and a 4C Spider Italia. The 4C Competizione comes in matte Vesuvio Grey with a carbon roof, plus extra carbon splashed around on the headlight molding, mirror caps, side air vents, and rear spoiler. Microfiber covers the steering wheel and seats, red stitching makes it pop, dark-finish wheels provide the stance. The 4C Spider Italia wears Misano Blue paint adorned with the Italian Tricolore, yellow brake calipers, yellow stitching in the cabin to match. If that isn't loud enough, the premium Alpine audio with subwoofer can get you turned up further.

Fiat Chrysler target 850k sales in China by 2018

Behind the vanguard of numerous Jeep models, two Chryslers, a smattering of Fiats and Alfa Romeos and local production through a joint venture with Guangzhou Automotive Group (GAG), Fiat Chrysler wants to increase sales in China more than six-fold by 2018. The group sold 130,000 cars in China in 2013, the aim for 2018 being 850,000 cars.
Ultimately it's expected that the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Cherokee, Wrangler, Renegade, the coming Grand Wagoneer and a sub-Renegade-sized crossover will either be built in or exported to the People's Republic. The Chrysler Town & Country and 300 will join the export list in 2016 and 2018 respectively, according to a report in Automotive News.
With a number of those vehicles not in production or perhaps even envisaged yet, and others not due on the local market until 2018, it will be interesting to see how Fiat Chrysler plans to achieve the target in the specified timeframe. The joint venture with GAG builds two products now, the Dodge Dart-based Fiat Viaggio launched two years ago - supposedly designed just for China - and the just-launched Fiat Ottimo, a hatchback version of the Viaggio. Fiat projected 300,000 Viagio sales in its first two years, that number has been adjusted downward to 94,000 and there doesn't appear to be an analyst alive that sees a good future for Fiat in China's overrun mainstream market. Still, last year's 130,000 group sales in China is a huge jump from 2012 sales of 66,000 units, but less than half the 300,000 units it projected.

Share price falls on skepticism of Chrysler-Fiat five-year plan

Following this week's Fiat Chrysler extravaganza, where the Italian-American manufacturer announced its plans for the next five years, the Autoblog staff was cautiously optimistic of the company's future. Investors? Not so much.
Fiat saw its shares tumble 12 percent in Wednesday's trading, falling from 8.67 euros ($12.06 at today's rates) to 7.44 euros ($10.35) as of this writing, with blame partly going to the Italian half of the FCA marriage, which recorded a pretty significant drop in profits during the first quarter of this year.
The plan, which will cost around $77 billion over the next several years, is facing criticism from investors thanks in part to a 1.4-percent drop in Fiat's first-quarter profits, to 622 million euros ($862 million). That figure is also short of Bloomberg analysts' projections, which predicted $1.18 billion in profits before taxes, interest and one-time items.