Fiat Auto have decided not to go ahead with the planned re-launch of the Lancia brand in the UK, due to the effects of the world wide credit crunch.
It seems however, that this isn’t the end of Fiat’s plans, but it’s just an issue of timing and it’s still intended at some point for us to all be able to go out and buy a Lancia in the UK at some point in the future.
As you might have guessed, it was intended that Lancia would be sold along side Alfa Romeo through their 50 UK dealerships and the new car was due to go on sale from summer 2009, but there has now been a complete revision of any plans Fiat had.
The first car due in the UK was the compact executive Lancia Delta (a name we all remember, but a very different car).
Its clear Fiat as a whole are also tightening the belts as their Chief Executive officer, Sergio Marchionne said “we are just going to slam the brakes on and cut back to essentials” He said, and he had therefore called a halt in the development of any model that hadn’t already reached between 80% to 90% of its completion.
The Alfa Romeo 147 replacement however will still be launched, but plans Fiat had for a new SUV to wear the Alfa Romeo badge are definitely being shelved.
It seems the days of a manufacturer building platforms purely for their own use have gone and with fears the number of big European motor manufacturing groups who manufacture mass volume dropping as low as six, clearly, any investment needs to be sustainable and when you consider it costs something in the region of half a billion Euro’s just for the development of a single vehicle, its pretty hard to see how its possible to get a return on the investment in the current market place.
However that’s good sense and whilst in the past, there have been some awful co-operations, there have also been some very good ones where all of the manufacturers involved have agreed the product and have all brought something to the table, resulting in all the good bits from each manufacturer going to make a car that’s probably better than were it developed individually.
This has to be a wake up call for the small independent manufacturers and car builders, because if Fiat, with all their clout no longer think they can go it alone, the future looks difficult for those smaller niche manufacturers.
