Chrysler and Fiat Form Alliance, Paves Way for Alfa Romeo to Return to the US

By Rich Truesdell

Automotive Traveler

It’s official. Chrysler and Fiat have agreed to a world-wide alliance that will see Fiat taking a 35% stake in the Auburn Hills automaker in exchange for the technology and platforms to produce fuel efficient  B-, C-, and possibly D-segment cars that are currently absent from Chrysler’s domestic lineup. This product sharing alliance is two fold. According to a report in today’s Wall Street Journal, the agreement will provide for Chrysler-branded, Fiat-designed vehicles to be built in North American plants that Fiat will retool. But more importantly, and potentially exciting for CarDomain readers, it will allow Chrysler’s dealers to offer Fiat and Alfa Romeo vehicles as well.

Over at Automotive Traveler, we’ve been following the Chrysler saga for months. In fact, back on November 3, 2008, we speculated that instead of GM, a far better potential partner for Chrysler would be the Fiat Group citing Chrysler’s need for small cars and Fiat’s need for North American distribution for its products. We even went so far as predicting which Fiat and Alfa Romeo models were likely to be imported stateside.

Over the past two days, as this story was breaking, we revisited Fiat and Alfa Romeo’s UK websites. Building on our original predictions, and knowing that part of the agreement is that some Fiat models are likely to be built in North America, we have refined our analysis and have taken an even more educated guess as to which Fiat and Alfa Romeo models are likely to reach North America over the next 24 months. Our pick as likely the first? Alfa Romeo’s exciting, New Mini-sized Mito subcompact. You can read the rest of the story over at Automotive Traveler.