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Italian financial newspaper MF claimed yesterday that
BMW could be in the picture as Fiat looks for a partner
to build cars in the United States for the Alfa Romeo
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Italian
financial newspaper MF claimed yesterday that BMW
could be in the picture as Fiat looks for a partner to
build cars in the United States for the Alfa Romeo
division.
Earlier this
week in an interview with the Financial Times,
Fiat Group CEO Sergio Marchionne revealed pointers about
the Italian firm's ambitious plans for the United States
which will see the imminent arrival of the Alfa Romeo
sports car division next year, followed by the
trucks-to-buses Iveco arm, as well as proposals to sell
Europe's most talked about car of the last year, the
Fiat 500 in North America.
He revealed
that Fiat was talking to the big three North American
carmakers - General Motors, Ford and Chrysler - about
assembling Alfa Romeo models in their factories on its
behalf. "You don't even need a full hand to count them,"
Marchionne told FT, "so let's assume that we know
them all and we talk to them from time to time about a
variety of options."
Yesterday
however MF, quoting sources close to Fiat, claimed that
BMW could be chosen as a North American partner to build
Alfa Romeo models. The Milan-based newspaper said that
while the focus was on the big three, a European partner
could not be ruled out, and it claimed that BMW would be
the favourite. Unconnected recent media stories have
linked Fiat to talks with BMW in Europe over platform
and technology sharing.
BMW has a
factory at Spartanburg in South Carolina and earlier
this month revealed a US$ 750 million plan to increase
capacity from 100,000 to 240,000 units annually by 2012,
with the biggest change to achieve this coming from a
US$27 million expansion to the 70,000 sq ft paint shop.
The factory currently builds the Z4 model for worldwide
markets as well as the X5, and shortly the new X6.
Production of the X3 model is to be moved to the plant
in two years time, while the Z4's lines will be moved to
Germany.
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