This is the way the Fiat 124 ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper.
Hiding in the press release that announces pricing for the 2021 Fiat 500X is a subsection labeled “2021 Fiat Lineup,” which ends with the following sentence: “The Fiat 124 Spider and the Fiat 500L will be discontinued after the 2020 model year.” Just like that, the turbocharged relative of the ND Mazda Miata is gone for the foreseeable future.
Of course, while it may be a sad loss for its fans, it also puts Fiat in an odd situation. Now that the 500, the 500L and the 124 are discontinued, that leaves Fiat with a single model to sell: The 500X—you know, the close cousin of the Jeep Renegade.
As of this writing, it isn’t known what sort of plans Fiat has for its future in America, though having a carmaker that sells a single model in a fairly large market like the U.S. doesn’t sound like the most profitable business plan. However, now that Peugeot and FCA are in the process of merging to form Stellantis, the Italian automaker's next steps here in the States are anyone's guess.
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Wow. That's a bit of a shock. How in the heck are Fiat dealers going to stay open selling only one vehicle? And not a desirable one at that. I know they are typically paired with the Alfa brand, but they aren't big sellers either. Thank goodness Fiat's money was helpful in developing the ND Miata. Crazy times.
I'll bet that the remaining Fiat 500x, suv is only sold to fleet as in rental cars. This will be an attempt to keep The Jeep Renegade from suffer from low resale prices.
Dump cheap Fiat 500x onto the market without dragging down the Jeep Renegade in the process.
Fleet only models are popular. GM does a lot of this like keeping the old body Malibu and Impala around for another year while simultaneously selling the new body at dealerships.
The Chevy Captiva was a rebranded Saturn Vue sold for many years only to fleets. It could be argued that 2019 & 2020 Grand Caravans were only kept around for fleets. The last year (2007) of the long running Taurus was only offered to fleets.
I gotta believe that the biggest customer of the Fiat 500L has always been fleets/rental.
As for Fiat dealers and their survival, my guess is there is no intention to keep the brand around and the dealers separate.
Watch out Alfa!
With the new merger with Peugeot, there are going to be a lot of models and brands disappear.
I just went to the Avis sales site. Within 1000 miles of my house (the farthest it will let me search) , Avis has 457 Jeep Compass listed for sale out of 999 total Jeep brand vehicles. Again, another model that is probably sold mostly only to fleets. Strangely, no Fiats listed for sale via Avis, currently.
Does the Compass continue on to next year? Replaced with Fiat 500x as fleet leader?
History repeating itself again.
Fiat tried selling two models from 1981-1982 (Spider 2000 and X1/9). That worked so well for them.
It may have been David E. Davis that wrote, "The French and the Italians have never figured out the American market." Now Fiat and Peugeot are going to combine? Yeah, that will work.
Fiat has focused so heavily on Europe and Asia for so long, I kinda saw this writing on the walls. Never seemed like they got the recipe right for American palettes. It doesn't help that Fiat seems to just re-badge other cars for the American market.
They should probably not spend so much money engineering for the American market in the future, since they are proven to be so bad at it. What would make sense would be to rehash an old model, to minimize the upfront losses. The US market is slim for compact cars right now, so a good idea would be to crank out some 106 Rallyes for the US market.
I am totally thinking of their economic future in the US and in no way just wanting a new 106 Rallye for myself.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Which, again, is a re-badged Peugeot.
Knowing Fiat, they'll bring a 106 to the states, but it will be a Mazda Demio... which is also a Ford Festiva. So they'll have a Fiat re-badge of a Peugeot model based on a Mazda which was a rebadge of a Ford.
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
well, it's a Peugeot-badged Peugeot.
Basically I want a 100hp 1.3l 1900lb car.
The Ford Festiva was not a Ford. It was a Kia-built Mazda 121.
John Welsh said:I just went to the Avis sales site. Within 1000 miles of my house (the farthest it will let me search) , Avis has 457 Jeep Compass listed for sale out of 999 total Jeep brand vehicles. Again, another model that is probably sold mostly only to fleets. Strangely, no Fiats listed for sale via Avis, currently.
Does the Compass continue on to next year? Replaced with Fiat 500x as fleet leader?
The Compass sells like gangbusters, the only way the Compass goes away is if they are going to replace it with a new model.
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