2019 Fiat 500x Pop Awd on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Fiat 500 Abarth to get automatic transmission option

Boo and hiss all you want, but the truth is that manual transmissions aren't for everybody. When Fiat launched the hot little 500 Abarth last year, it did so with a five-speed manual as the only transmission available, but according to Ward's Auto, that might change.
"We're not opposed to doing it. We just didn't think there would be consumer requests for it, and there is," Fiat's North American president, Tim Kuniskis, told Ward's in regards to an automatic-equipped Abarth.
With the launch of the upcoming droptop 500C Abarth, Kuniskis says that the company is expecting a few more women buyers to opt for the more potent version of the pint-sized cabriolet. "I think when we'll see more women is when we have the automatic, and we're planning to add the automatic in the Abarth at some point, only because we're getting that feedback from customers."

Fiat 500X takes the blue pill

The Fiat 500 keeps getting bigger. Ron Arad aptly pointed out that much with his special-edition hatchback, but even in its modern incarnation, it just keeps growing: from the three-door hatch to the five-seat 500L, the ruggedized 500L Trekking, the seven-seat 500L Living and now the long-awaited 500X. Sure, it may be smaller than most crossovers, but it's positively huge by Cinquecento standards - a good third larger than the original whose spirit it embodies.
So how did Fiat make it grow? We'll give you a hint, Morpheus: it didn't take the red pill. As if it doesn't itself know, Fiat puts forward this possible explanation that's worth a watch... if you can make it through the first borderline-NSFW scene without puking. All we'll say is that the sexual suggestiveness of the 500 Abarth ad with Catrinel Menghia was a bit more palatable.

China-FCA merger could be a win-win for everyone but politicians

NEW YORK — Fiat Chrysler boss Sergio Marchionne has said the car industry needs to come together, cut costs and stop incinerating capital. So far, his words have mostly fallen on deaf ears among competitors in Europe and North America. But it appears Marchionne has finally found a receptive audience — in China. FCA shares soared Monday after trade publication Automotive News reported the $18 billion Italian-American conglomerate controlled by the Agnelli family rebuffed a takeover from an unidentified carmaker from the Chinese mainland. As ugly as the politics of such a combination may appear at first blush, a transaction could stack up industrially, and perhaps even financially. A Sino-U.S.-European merger would create the first truly global auto group. That could push consolidation to the next level elsewhere. Moreover, China is the world's top market for the SUVs that Jeep effectively invented, so it might benefit FCA financially. A combo would certainly help upgrade the domestic manufacturer; Chinese carmakers have gotten better at making cars, but struggle to build global brands, and they need to develop export markets. Though frivolous overseas shopping excursions by Chinese enterprises are being reined in by Beijing, acquisitions that support the modernization and transformation of strategic industries still receive support, and the government considers the automotive industry to be strategic. A purchase of FCA by Guangzhou Automobile, Great Wall or Dongfeng Motors would probably get the same stamp of approval ChemChina was given for its $43 billion takeover of Syngenta. What's standing in the way? Apart from price (Automotive News said FCA's board deemed the offer insufficient) there's the not-insignificant matter of politics. Even as FCA shares soared, President Donald Trump interrupted his vacation to instruct the U.S. Trade Representative to look into whether to investigate China's trade policies on intellectual property. Seeing storied Detroit brands like Jeep, Chrysler, Ram and Dodge handed off to a Chinese company would provoke howls among Trump's economic-nationalist supporters. It might not play well in Italy, either, to see Alfa Romeo and Maserati answering to Wuhan instead of Turin — though Automotive News said they might be spun off separately. Yet, as Morgan Stanley observes, "cars don't ship across oceans easily," and political considerations increasingly demand local manufacture of valuable products.