AutoItalia – August 2019

(Michael S) #1
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.

auto italia 3

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