14 Fiat 500l Lounge 13k 1 Owner Beats By Dre Navigation Pdc Rear Cam Pano Alloys on 2040-cars

Auto blog

FCA names Mike Manley head of Ram brand

Sergio Marchionne seems to revel in shifting the numerous portfolios of the senior executives who work under him. Case in point: the latest round of hat-swapping announced by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Several appointments have been made at the top levels of the group, chief among them a new head of the Ram truck brand. That role will now fall to Mike Manley, who will also retain his responsibilities for the Jeep brand and as COO for the Asia-Pacific region. With his hands busy enough as it is, we'd imagine that much of the day-to-day will fall to Robert Hegbloom. He had Manley's new job until now – but will still remain head of the Ram brand for North America, where the bulk of its business is conducted. Along with the shift in leadership for the Ram brand, FCA also named Reid Bigland as head of fleet operations for North America. Bigland is also responsible for sales in the same region, and for the Alfa Romeo brand here as well. The company also named Tim Kuniskis to the Group Executive Council, charged with overseeing all the passenger-car brands in North America – including Dodge, Chrysler, and Fiat. While it was at it, FCA also named Al Gardner as head of network development for North America, and Jason Stoicevich as Bigland's deputy for US fleet and small-business sales. All these appointments take effect immediately. FCA US ANNOUNCES LEADERSHIP CHANGES October 5, 2015 , Auburn Hills, Mich. - FCA US today announced several leadership team moves in support of changes at the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (FCA) Group Executive Council (GEC) level. The moves were made to ensure proper representation of all of FCA's major brands on the GEC, the highest management level decision making body within the FCA organization. Earlier today, the following moves were announced at the GEC level. - Mike Manley is appointed Head of Ram Brand. Manley will retain his current GEC responsibilities as APAC Chief Operating Officer and Head of Jeep Brand. - Reid Bigland is appointed Head of NAFTA Fleet. Bigland will continue his current GEC responsibility for NAFTA Sales & Alfa Romeo. - Timothy Kuniskis becomes a member of the GEC and assumes responsibility for NAFTA Passenger Car Brands, consisting of Dodge and SRT, Chrysler and FIAT. In addition, the following appointments were made to the North American leadership team. - Robert Hegbloom continues as Head of Ram Brand for North America, now reporting to Manley.

Say hi to our new long-term 2016 Fiat 500X

We always get pretty excited when a new long-term car shows up. This Fiat 500X was a very welcome addition, as it was immediately put into the summer road-trip rotation. Since it arrived a few weeks back, it has already been to "Up North" Michigan (what we call the northern part of the lower peninsula – don't ask) three times. There's an unboxing video above with the highlights, and below we'll explain in a little more detail which options we chose and why. What we got The collective brain trust here chose the top trim level, Trekking Plus. While we tend to try and avoid the fanciest model, it was cheaper to go with a Trekking Plus rather than option up a Lounge model to get everything we were really interested in. (It's confusing – check out the "Compare Packages" link on the 500X configurator to see what we mean.) The color is called Verde Toscana – that's Tuscan Green for us Americans, and we chose the brown leather instead of black. The Trekking Plus has the 2.4-liter Tigershark four-cylinder and a nine-speed automatic transmission. (More on that soon.) It also has nearly everything you can put in one of these small crossovers, including Uconnect infotainment with navigation, a separate color screen between the gauges, blind-spot monitoring, rear parking sensors with cross-traffic detection, a rearview camera, selectable driving modes, remote start, and 18-inch wheels. We also happen to think the Trekking Plus has the most attractive exterior package among the 500X lineup. The trim names (Pop, Easy, Trekking, Lounge, Trekking Plus) could use some work, though – but hey, it's Italian. What we skipped We bucked the Michigan trend and went with front-wheel drive instead of all-wheel, saving us a theoretical $1,900. We'll put winter tires on it when the snow comes, which should be all we need to get through that six-month season of bleakness. There are some extra-cost paint options, all of which add $1,000, but we decided green looked best and had a price of $0. There are two packages available on the Trekking Plus – the imaginatively named Collection 1 and Collection 2 – but neither really appealed to us, so we skipped them. So you know what we're missing out on, Collection 1 is a big dual-pane sunroof and Beats audio, while Collection 2 is the same dual-pane sunroof packaged with auto high-beams, automatic wipers, lane departure with lane-keeping, and forward-collision braking.

Marchionne's FCA-GM merger might come after Ferrari spinoff

Sergio Marchionne is continuing to rumble about working out a merger with General Motors, but don't expect anything big to happen before at least early next year. That's because Marchionne would likely wait for the Ferrari spin-off to be complete before beginning his next big deal, according to Automotive News. While the Ferrari IPO on the New York Stock Exchange is expected in the coming weeks, that only concerns 10 percent of the shares. The remaining 80 percent of stock is being distributed among shareholders in 2016. Piero Ferrari holds the final 10 percent with no intention to sell. This strategy allows FCA to claim 80 percent of the Prancing Horse's profits in the automaker's 2015 financial results. According to Automotive News, the tactic has other advantages, as well. FCA would be flush with cash by waiting for the spin-off to be complete, and it would keep Ferrari separate if a GM merger actually happens. Marchionne thinks Ferrari could be valued at over $11 billion in the IPO, and it could make FCA $3.3 billion richer when complete. Marchionne believes a combined FCA/GM could sell 17 million vehicles a year globally and rake in $30 billion in earnings. In the CEO's opinion, the two automakers are wasting money by developing components to do the same things on their vehicles. Although, so far the General's top execs are rebuffing all of his advances.