The Italian auto manufacturer, which also is the majority owner of Chrysler Group LLC, will introduce a five-door model "related" to its subcompact 500 at the Geneva motor show in March, said Olivier Francois, head of the Fiat brand.
The new model, he said, will be sold in the U.S starting next year. The company has a lot riding on the 500, inspired from the tiny 1950s original. Fiat sold almost 4 million 500s from 1957 to 1975, years when the model was as recognizable as Italian movie stars Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. Fiat has sold more than 770,000 of the model since bringing the redesigned version back to the market in Europe in 2007.
The new 500 was to have been CEO Sergio Marchionne's answer in the U.S. to the BMW Mini. The model's first year on the North American market went poorly. Only 26,000 cars were sold, about half the number forecasted by the company. That's thrown a wrench into Marchionne's strategy to craft a global auto group combining Fiat and Chrysler and increase revenue to more than 100 billion by 2014.
Now the company is banking on a roomier version of the 500 -- as well as the high-performance Abarth derivative of the model, which goes on sale in North America this year -- to get the brand selling. The new wagon model is expected to be bigger and has been developed specifically for the U.S. market, said Dave Sullivan, a product analyst at Auto Pacific Inc.
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