2012 Fiat 500 Sport on 2040-cars

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Stellantis ready to kill brands and fix U.S. problems, CEO Tavares says

  MILAN — Stellantis is taking steps to fix weak margins and high inventory at its U.S. operations and will not hesitate to axe underperforming brands in its sprawling portfolio, its chief executive Carlos Tavares said on Thursday. The warning for lossmaking brands is a turnaround for Tavares, who has maintained since Stellantis was created in 2021 from the merger of Italian-American automaker Fiat Chrysler and France's PSA that all of its 14 brands including Maserati, Fiat, Peugeot and Jeep have a future. "If they don't make money, we'll shut them down," Carlos Tavares told reporters after the world's No. 4 automaker delivered worse-than-expected first-half results, sending its shares down as much as 10%. "We cannot afford to have brands that do not make money." The automaker now also considers China's Leapmotor as its 15th brand, after it agreed to a broad cooperation with the group. Stellantis does not release figures for individual brands, except for Maserati which reported an 82 million euro adjusted operating loss in the first half. Some analysts say Maserati could possibly be a target for a sale by Stellantis, while other brands such as Lancia or DS might be at risk of being scrapped given their marginal contribution to the group's overall sales. Stellantis' Milan-listed shares were down as much as 12.5% on Thursday, hitting their lowest since August 2023. That brings the loss for the year so far to 22%, making them the worst performer among the major European automakers. Few automotive brands have been killed off since General Motors ditched the unprofitable Saturn and Pontiac during a U.S. government-led bankruptcy in the global financial crisis in 2008. Tavares is under pressure to revive flagging margins and sales and cut inventory in the United States as Stellantis bets on the launch of 20 new models this year which it hopes will boost profitability. Recent poor results from global carmakers have heightened worries about a weakening outlook for sales across major markets such as the U.S., whilst they also juggle an expensive transition to electric vehicles and growing competition from cheaper Chinese rivals. Japan's Nissan Motor saw first-quarter profit almost completely wiped out on Thursday and slashed its annual outlook, as deep discounting in the United States shredded its margins. Tavares said he would be working through the summer with his U.S. team on how to improve performance and cut inventory.

Abarth 695 Biposto revealed as quickest Fiat 500 yet

The Fiat 500 is supposed to be a budget model - something you can pick up with less than twenty grand to your name. But once Abarth gets its hands on it, all bets are off. The Scorpion brand is charged with getting the most performance it can out of budget-oriented vehicles like the Cinquecento and Punto, and that's just what it's done with the new 695 Biposto.
Billed as the "fastest street legal Abarth ever" (quickest?) and unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show, the 695 Biposto packs a 1.4-liter turbo four that's been tuned to produce 190 horsepower - a good thirty more than the already entertaining Fiat 500 Abarth we get in the United States. With a robust power-to-weight ratio - the highest in its class, according to the Italians - the 695 Biposto can hit 62 miles per hour from a standstill in just 5.9 seconds, more than a second quicker than the US model.
Now if you saw the name Biposto and figured out that means just two seats, you're spot on: in its campaign to trim excess fat, Abarth has ditched the rear bench and replaced the front seats with a set of Sabelt racing buckets with four-point harnesses anchored where the rear seats would be. The fixed plexiglass front side windows do their part, too. It's also been fitted with adjustable shocks, an MXL digital data recorder, a titanium rear roll bar, Brembo brakes and 18-inch OZ alloys.

Fiat 500X may get Abarth treatment

Nissan has Nismo and Mini has John Cooper Works versions of their sub-compact CUVs, so it's only natural that Fiat is playing around with the idea of an Abarth-badged 500X. That's the rationale behind a new report from Autocar, which claims the higher-output CUV is coming in 2017. It all comes down to growing the Abarth line. Autocar reports that Fiat is very keen on scorpion-badged models. Abarth brand chief Paolo Gagliardo told Automotive News Europe, "We want to keep growing and stabilize at a certain level." We already know that plan requires a 124 Abarth, but it seems impossible to accomplish without Abarth-izing the Fiat with the most mainstream appeal, the 500X. Increasing performance in the 500X shouldn't be a problem, although it won't be quite as easy here in the US. As AC explains, the Euro-market 500X's 1.4-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder only produces 138 horsepower, a figure that would likely be bumped up to 170 hp in an Abarth model. But that same engine makes 160 ponies in the US, and it already coexists with a 180-hp, 2.4-liter, naturally aspirated four-cylinder. That almost certainly means a US-market 500X Abarth will need much more than the 32-hp bump AC is forecasting. It's not just competition within the US-market 500X line, though. The new Abarth's chief rivals, the Juke Nismo RS and JCW Countryman both produce in excess of 200 hp. The idea of a 500X Abarth is appealing, but if Fiat expects the CUV to survive in North America – which AC expects to be Fiat's main market – it'll need to take a closer look at how much power is on offer. Related Video: