Lancia's European registrations for Jan 06

[mark tobin]

Hi Guys,

Not been here for a while, but i thought i'd do a posting every month on Lancia's sales x model for Europe. If anyone wants me to post these every month just let me know and i will.

Model=====Jan 06=====Jan05

Lybra .............124..................471
Musa............3160................4021
Phedra...........472..................699
Thesis..............27...................243
Ypsilon.........7740................6240
"other".................3......................8

Sadly the only model up is the Ypsilon, with the much underrated Thesis sales taking a massive dive! On a more positive note, the Musa actually outsold Fiats Idea in January (3160 vs 3010).

[daniel pottier]

Yes please !

[Randy Adams]

With sales of both the Thesis and the Maseratis apparently sinking so badly, I have a question: is Europe suffering a recession right now?

[mark tobin]

i don't think so to be honest, the reasons for the Thesis & Maserati range seeing their sales drop is simple, the Thesis is too underrarted and sales i'm afraid have been heading south for a long time, i can only imagine how much lancia lose on this model.

And Maserati are going to see their sales fall as the coupe/spider need to be replaced, and i'd say most of their sales are off the back of the fab Quattroporte.

The Maserati coupe sold 67 in Jan06, compared with 84 in Jan05,
and the spider sold 6 in Jan 06, compared with 15 Jan05

Quattroporte sales are 126 Jan06, compared with 162 Jan05

[Philip]

I think part of the Thesis drop may be attributed to a model change; it had disappeared from catalogues entirely in some/most markets but now is back with the new 2.4JTD now on sale, albeit with only 185PS vs 200PS for Fiats or Alfas with this engine. Yes, you may have a Croma with 200PS but not a Thesis - go figure!

At the Geneva show there seemed to be quite a bit of interest in the sole example of a Thesis on display, but again funnily, instead of showing the new JTD variant they had a fully loaded 3.2 petrol version on show...

thanks Mark, keep this up to date!

greetings from rainy Geneva

Philip

[Lindsay]

I agree totally with Philip. What is the thinking behind not offering the 200bhp JTD? I take it you have seen the picture of the many Thesis being scrapped, presumably by Fiat? Does anyone know the story behind the picture?

[Philip]

I haven't seen the picture, but I had read an item somewhere (I think on the German thread here) that some Thesis were produced with some serious production flaw-perhaps they are the ones that have been scrapped?

[alan]

if that's the case it could be the beta rust scandal all over again.....................








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[Philip]

No, this was a clearly defined build series which could have been indentified really easily; the early betas were ALL prone to rust.

Besides, the Beta rust legend was blown totally out fo proportion by the British press and they never ceased talking about rusty Italian cars to the point that this false reporting is still damaging the image of Italian cars; I owned a Lancia Thema in Switzerland for 11 years (1999-2000) and covered 235K kms and there was not one speck of rust on it. Dedras of that era are still running around also without any rust whatsovere; coampre that to Japanese cars or even VW's or Audis of similar age and you'd be surprised at how sound Italians are.
Philip

[Lindsay]

The British press have had it in for the Italians ever since the 70s. The Thema generation were excellent against rust (apart from the top of the rear screen!). Mercedes seem to be one of the worst these days. E and S class on the front wings...and around the bootlocks. Nothing said about that - or the fact the build quality over recent years has been poor. Such is life.