Strada Pickup?

I saw one of these in Lubbock today:

At first sight, from the rear quarter, I thought it was a two-door Subaru Baja. Then I got close enough to verify the FIAT and Strada badges.

Are these being sold in the US? Am I that far out of the loop?

My guess is that it was just being hot weather tested in TX, NM, AZ.

I expect that the Chicken Tax will keep it from being sold here, unless.
1. They assemble it here in the US.
or
2. They change it so the back seat has doors.

Chicken Tax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

I like it.

JRW, Thanks for sharing info on the Chicken tax, first I've heard of that stupid thing.

Good link. Learn something new every day. That is one obscene tax.

Another possibility no one has mentioned is that this could be assembled in Mexico. With the Fiat-Chrysler linkup, and NAFTA, importing a SUV/truck from "south of the border" wouldn't be too difficult.

Interesting choice for a name, not because Fiat used it before, but because Chevy had the El Camino (Spanish for road) and Strada loosely translates to road.

Think of it as a modern day Rampage.

There's more tacked on plastic bits on that thing than a Pontiac Aztek.

cloud81918 wrote: I like it. JRW, Thanks for sharing info on the Chicken tax, first I've heard of that stupid thing.

This is why Mazda sells rebadged Rangers and the US gets a different Tacoma, etc.

And why all ford transits are actually shipped with seats in them, regardless of final use.

It's not the only reason the U.S. gets a different Tacoma. We get a different Tacoma because in other countries there are laws restricting the WIDTH of vehicles as well as strict tax laws on engine displacements.. It wouldn't make sense for Mazda to engineer a pickup that was either a bit too narrow, or had to have an engine bay that accomodated small diesels and large V6s....same for Nissan and Toyota. Also as it became necessary to add more padding and then side airbags to even small pickups...they had to get wider for U.S. buyers.

Until the market got big enough, Nissan and Toyota got around the Chicken Tax by importing trucks without their beds. Sometimes the beds came on a different ship, sometimes the beds were built in a factory near the port with the greatest traffic.

even without the fiat badge... I like it!

In reply to mndsm:

Ironic, since the chicken tax was supposed to benefit US automakers!

I would love an Aussie Ford Ranger with a diesel.

Remove some of the extended cab and add in a more bed space and I'd like it.

I doubt it was here for testing, my guess is that the truck was from Mexico.

A long time back, I saw a picture of a facility at Long Beach where there were hundreds of rows of small pickups without beds. They were imported as 'disassembled' to circumvent that very same 'chicken tax'. The beds were imported as 'auto parts' and were installed in a similar fashion as the Ford Transit thing. I wasn't aware that Subaru did the rear facing seats in the Brat for the same reason, though.

Do you think the average Texan will give up their pickup for one of those?

I thought that was the reason why the 4WD Toyotas had different beds from the 2WD ones through the 70's and 80's, one was sent over from Japan and the other was locally built.

I knew that Fiat was planning to use the Chrysler hookup to start getting some fiats on our side of the world. I really wish that if we were going to get infiltrated by some euro cars it was more of the French variety. A Peugeot 206 GTi would be really cool to get all "rally style" on.

Being from only 130 miles or so from where that car was spotted. I will tell you that the average Texan would not trade his pickup for that. We just barely started driving the Toyotas. Even though they've been better trucks than their American counterparts for years.

TuffWork wrote: Being from only 130 miles or so from where that car was spotted. I will tell you that the average Texan would not trade his pickup for that. We just barely started driving the Toyotas. Even though they've been better trucks than their American counterparts for years.

Surely you are not talking about the Tundra?

oldopelguy wrote: I thought that was the reason why the 4WD Toyotas had different beds from the 2WD ones through the 70's and 80's, one was sent over from Japan and the other was locally built.

And they both managed to turn into dust quite readily. If those older toyota trucks didn't rust so badly they would be unstoppable.

Totally unrelated - cloud81918, your avatar is friggin hilarious!!!!

4cylndrfury wrote: Totally unrelated - cloud81918, your avatar is friggin hilarious!!!!

Not a situation I would want to find myself in!