important comment on fiat

[j. c. in sunday times]

please spread this over the world and do something you fiat spa!

we found this in Sunday Times UK:

I no longer understand the meaning or the value of money. Last week a company called Pearson announced it had lost GBP 188m and immediately its share price shot up by 42 percent. Why? Has GBP 188m suddenly become small change, the sort of sum people in the City don\\\'t even notice? I think it probably has. The gulf between personal experience and corporate reality has become so wide that normal people simply can\\\'t grasp it any more. They round things down to the nearest billion. We worry about over-tipping taxi drivers. And me? Well, I\\\'m worried about Fiat. Earlier this year they sold some shares in Ferrari, which is a bit like the Queen chipping bits off the Koh-i-Noor and flogging them down brick lane. And now it\\\'s running full-page advertisements in the newspapers claiming full responsibility for Michael Schumacher\\\'s 37th world championship. Which is a bit like my accountant claiming credit for this column.

So what\\\'s the problem? Fiat Auto has only lost GBP 515m so far this year and that, as we know, is pocket money. They\\\'ll refloat the hedge, shore up the back end and downgrade the private equity or whatever is is corporate types do, and next week, all will be well. \\\"No it won\\\'t\\\", said Burnt Fishtrousers, the new boss of Volkswagen, recently. \\\"They have got 18 months and then they are finished\\\".

Crikey. This is awful. I mean, when Daewoo had its back to the wall recently, I was positively overjoyed at the prospects of iys going belly up. When Rover was in a mess we were only really worried about jobs. But Fiat is a different story. Because Fiat owns not only Ferrari, but also Lancia, Alfa Romeo and Maserati. This means they own the heart and the soul of the global car industry.

The British know how to innovate. The Japanese know how to copy us. The Germans know how to build stuff. The Americans don\\\'t know anything but have lovely teeth, and the Koreans are learning fast. Only the Italians know how to make a car which make you smile.

I\\\'ve just spent the week with an Alfa Romeo 156 GTA and it was hopeless. It had the turning circle of a planet, an air conditioning system that would have a job cooling down an igloo, Ray Charles rear visibility and seats made of the slipperiest substance known to man. After every corner I ended up in the back.

Then there\\\'s the exterior. The 156 has been around for a while now, so to try to keep it fresh they\\\'ve fitted a styling kit of such monumental horror it could deflect a customer into the nearest BMW dealership from a range of 1,000 yards.

And yet, it was hopeless in the same way hat a three year old child is hopeless. It can\\\'t draw, it can\\\'t read, it has no sense of right or wrong and yet, when everything is just right, it can melt your heart.

The V6 engine has lost some of its aural majesty now it displaces a whopping 3.2 litres. But the power is there and so is the speed, and so, more importantly, is the throttle response. Alfa themselves say the GTA can travel in sixth gear at less than 2000 rpm and unleash \\\'speed spurts\\\' without changing gear.

They\\\'re right. When you stab the accelerator it feels like you just plugged the entire car into Ferrybridge power station.

And then there\\\'s the handling. Yes, it\\\'s front wheel drive, but there\\\'s so much grip, so much poise and so little torque steer, you\\\'re hard pressed to tell.

This is a great car, a magnificent car. but at GBP 27,000 I wouldn\\\'t buy one. And nor will you, because you\\\'d rather have a BMW or Subaru Impreza. And there we have the problem. We can\\\'t buy Lancias in Britain, we don\\\'t want Fiat Stilo and if we could afford a Maserati we would buy a Mercedes. The number of real petrolheads is dwindling and as it does, so the number of customers for Fiat is dwindling, too.

So, soon General Motors, which already owns 20% of Fiat will buy the rest. They\\\'ll have to. They only lost GBP 495m in Europe last year so they have money to burn. And once they\\\'re in the hot seat they\\\'ll erase all the Fiat Group problems. But in doing so they will erase the spirit, too. These are sad times.

jeremy clarckson

[Ryan]

basically good article, but the British really do love themselves, now don't they.

[Martin]

Yes we do! and the majority of people think Jeremy is a fool!. I've had the unfortunate experience of meeting him on one occasion and I must admit I think he's a real idiot, he certainly showed no interest in Lancia's and even expressed an opinion that rallying is not a real sport.

Its not a bad article (as you can imagine I was rather surprised when I read Jeremy's name at the bottom!).

[Randy Adams]

I like the comment on Americans. I have great teeth. But he sold us short. We have the unrivalled mastery in destroying culture. Just thought you might like to know.

[Hamish]

Favourite Yank joke -

What happens if you put a group of American students into one dark cupboard and a pot of yogurt into another and leave them both for 250 years?

Obvious really. The pot of yogurt develops a hell of a culture.....

But seriously, Clarkson has been writing complete bollocks for years about cars and his assisination of the Alfa is surprising as he has said it's one of his favourite engines in the past... I mean to say we take his ramblings about a sseriously as, say, George Bush or Tony Blair!

[renato cattaneo]

the best way to save Lancia is to buy its products, but I do not very much like the current automobiles.
If the kayak were to be made, I would most certainly join the inevitable queue. Also, a V8 engine might be worth cosidering, somewhere in the neighborhood of 4000 ccm.

[João Costa]

Bad morning!
I live very said just to know that the FIAT's great brands are going to a group that only knows how to handle money.

Lancia and it's unique italian style is my favourite brand...... came and look at my Lancia Y LX and you'll see the most interesting car, nothing is conventional!!!! Everything is style.... That' lancia!

Viva Lancia!