Fiat's small, efficient models were very much in favour with German new car buyers during April with 23,944 units registered putting it up 150.5 percent year-on-year and making it the fourth highest selling brand in Europe's biggest new car market; this was also the market's biggest year-on-year rise with the exception of its sister niche brand Alfa Romeo. The Italian carmaker has been one of the biggest recipients of the financial incentives that are being offered by the German government in an effort to persuade owners of higher polluting older cars to trade them in at the dealerships for more efficient new models and in doing so help kick start stalled car sales.

The 'scrappage' scheme's positive effects started to really filter down and begin to bite in March with the overall market climbing 39.9 pct while Fiat rocketed 217.8 pct. Into April that upwards trend has continued, with the overall market climbing by 19.4 pct year-on-year (379,626 registrations) while Fiat gained 150.9 pct with 23,944 cars sold, and that equated to a 6.3 pct share of the market. For the year-to-date Fiat now has 67,909 registrations in Germany putting it up 115.8 pct year-on-year (the market's third best performance, only Lada and Hyundai have achieved better sales) and giving it a 5.4 pct share of all sales in Germany so far this year.

Fiat's spectacular performance in April - 23,944 units registered - made it the fourth best selling brand in Germany and it was only beaten by perennial market leader VW (78,332; +21.6 pct), Fiat's prospective merger partner Opel (38,012; +35.8 pct) and Ford (28,494; +29.7 pct). Fiat's strong performance - underpinned by demand for the 500 - also put it ahead of three prestige national brands: BMW and Mini combined (23,883; -22.2 pct), Mercedes-Benz (23,336; -35.2 pct), Audi (22,004; -10.7 pct),

The brand with the best year-on-year performance in Germany during April was Fiat's stable mate, Alfa Romeo, which saw 1,349 of its sporty cars registered to put it up a whopping 175.3 pct on April 2008. Driven by demand for the new Alfa MiTo it took a 0.4 pct share of the market and is now on 3,758 cars sold across Germany after the first four months of the year. That equates to a 115.2 pct year-on-year rise which puts it only behind Lada, Hyundai and Fiat. Lancia couldn't complete the rosy picture for Fiat Group Automobiles: with 374 new registrations last month it was down 7.4 pct year-on-year to take a 0.1 pct share of the overall market. However it has seen 1,369 sales so far this year that means it is still in positive territory year-on-year, up 12.3 pct compared to the opening four months of last year.