Lancia continued its stunning recent home market sales form last month, thanks in particular to increased demand for the Musa (above, in Ecochic format) which saw its sales more than double year-on-year. In October the Lancia brand notched up 9,741 sales, up over 2,000 units on the same month last year when it recorded 7,604 units, and this added up to an impressive 28.10 percent year-on-year rise and meant its market share climbed from 4.50 to 4.50 percent year-on-year. Sergio Cravero, the CEO of Alfa Romeo Automobiles last month consigned the first of the special limited-edition Alfa Romeo Brera "Italia Independent" models to Giovanni Acconciagioco, the founder of Italia Independent; the handover taking place at the Mirafiori Motor Village.

Fiat Group saw its sales in Italy climb by almost 15 percent last month, its total of 63,782 vehicles being more than 8,000 units up year-on-year with its performance led out by the Lancia brand which continued its impressive recent run, this time putting 28.10 percent on top of its performance during the same month last year. The overall Italian new car market turned in an excellent month, according to data released by automotive trade body UNRAE, and with 195,545 units registered it was up 15.69 percent on October 2008; Fiat Group couldn’t quite match the market average, the dominant domestic carmaker was up 14.97 percent and that saw its market share slip fractionally from 32.82 to 32.68 percent of all sales year-on-year.

The Fiat brand (including Abarth) accounted for the bulk of the domestic giant’s total sales and with 49,168 units registered last month, Fiat was up 14.97 percent which meant its market share slipped from 25.39 to 25.14 percent year-on-year. Lancia continued its stunning recent home market sales form, thanks to increased demand for the Ypsilon and Musa and in October it notched up 9,741 sales, up over 2,000 units on the same month last year when it recorded 7,604 units. This added up to an impressive 28.10 percent year-on-year rise and meant its market share climbed from 4.50 to 4.50 percent year-on-year while it also sold more than double the number of car managed by sister Fiat Group Automobiles (FGA) niche brand Alfa Romeo, which notched up 4,807 sales last month, putting it down 1.07 percent on last October and saw its market share slip from 2.87 to 2.46 percent year-on-year. While the MiTo, Brera and 159 all performed quite well for Alfa Romeo last month, the brand's volumes are being hit by a rapid tailing off of 147 sales in the ever-so-important C-segment ahead of the arrival of its long-anticipated replacement next spring, the Milano. Of the Fiat Group's niche luxury/performance brands Ferrari with 29 sales (led out by 17 sales for the new California) in October was down 25.64 while Maserati's 37 units left it off 38.33 percent; the Trident's best seller was the GranTurismo with 23 units.

In A-segment the Punto and 500 were the top-two sellers last month in Italy while the ageing Fiat Seicento (1,468) still made its tiny presence felt in an excellent eighth place. In B-segment last month the Punto was the clear best seller, the Ypsilon (up more than 1,000 units year-on-year) was in fourth, while the Musa (3,380) was tenth and the "compact MPV" played its part in Lancia's sales success in October as its sales were more than double that it achieved during the same month last year. After the first ten months of the year the Musa has sold 24,144 units which also puts it ahead of the same period in 2008. The Alfa MiTo hatchback dropped out of the B-segment top-ten though in October. In C-segment the Fiat Bravo (3,955) was the second most popular choice in October and it was one-and-a-half-thousand units up on last year, while for the year-to-date it is on 34,278 unit sales, 5,000 units down on the same period last year. Lancia's third and newest model, the Delta, had a poor October but is still on 17,674 sales for the year-to-date. In D-segment the Alfa 159 (1,128 units, with 670 being Sportwagon variants) was fifth, while the Fiat Croma (821) had an uncharacteristically slow month; for the year to date the 159 has 11,683 sales and the Croma is on 9,926, leaving them as the third and sixth best-sellers in the category respectively.

Elsewhere the Fiat Sedici (794) was fourth in the Furiostrada category and eighth amongst "Crossover" cars (with 175 units) while amongst the small MPVs the Musa was comfortably the best seller with its sister platform model, Fiat's Idea (1,378) in third after it had a particularly good month and it now has 7,588 sales for the year-to-date. In the coupé category, where curiously the Alfa MiTo (2,755) is counted in Italy, the small Alfa Romeo model was the clear winner and it now has 25,230 sales for the year-to-date, while in ninth place the Alfa Brera (91) made a welcome reappearance in the top-10 and its October sales were more than double the 42 units that it managed in the same month last year. Rounding out the top-ten in the coupé segment was the Alfa GT (72) and it was also up year-on-year by two units. Finally in Multispazio the Fiat Qubo (619) and Fiat Doblò (424) occupied the top-two positions and for the year-to-date they lead the category with 10,506 and 4,404 sales respectively.