AutoItalia – August 2019

The last week of May and the first week of June came with a short-lived frisson of

excitement. It seemed like we would be reporting on the merger of Fiat Chrysler

Automobiles with French company Renault. On 27 May, FCA sent Renault an official proposal

to merge, with a 50/50 ownership split between the two companies. Fascinatingly, there’s a

historical precedent for this: exactly 60 years ago, Alfa Romeo started to build the Renault

Dauphine under licence in Italy (as evidenced in the pic above).

Had the 2019 merger gone ahead, it would have resulted in the third largest car company in

the world, with 8.7 million vehicle sales annually, and a huge market presence in pretty

much every region and vehicle segment. If you added in Nissan into the mix, it would have

been the biggest car group of all.

But the proposal was already dead by 6 June, when FCA announced: “It has become clear

that the political conditions in France do not currently exist for such a combination to

proceed successfully”. From what I understand, Renault was divided over the idea. Frankly, it

has an awful lot on its plate at the moment, not the least being big issues over its Nissan

relationship, and an FCA merger was simply off the table.

That’s a shame in many ways, as the combined strength of FCA and Renault would have

been enormous. It would also have given Fiat an immediate ‘in’ on electrification, which it

desperately needs, since it’s currently paying Tesla hundreds of millions in carbon offset

payments to avoid CO2 fines. FCA undoubtedly needs a big partner like Renault. For long-

term prosperity, it’s inevitable. But if the French company isn’t to be the bride, who will be?

Watch this space.

In other news, I’ve now seen Ferrari’s new SF90 Stradale in the flesh and I have to say, I’m

tremendously excited about it. Far more than just a worthy LeFerrari successor, it marks an

absolute revolution for the Prancing Horse in so many ways. You can find out exactly why in

our in-depth coverage starting on page 14.

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