More substance to Fiat’s
controversial plans to built its next-generation mini-MPV in
Serbia have come from the country’s Economy Minister
Mlađan Dinkić, who says pre-production vehicles will
arrive at the end of next year, ahead of its launch at
the 2012 Geneva Motor Show. Total investment for the
project is set to hit close to 1 billion euros.
“The test [pre-production
prototypes] series, according to the documentation that
was officially presented to us, will come out in late
2011, and after the promotion of the new model at the
2012 Auto Fair in Geneva, mass production of the model
will begin,” Dinkić told daily Večernje Novosti
according to the B92 news agency.
Dinkić added that Fiat
will invest 888 million euros over the next two years,
on top of the 100 million euros it has sunk into the
Kragujevac factory so far. “The total investment of Fiat
will be greater by about 100 million euros than it was
planned at first, and it will reach about 944 million
euros, because the new model from Kragujevac will be
more modern, larger and more expensive. Essentially,
this means that Fiat will be investing about 600 million
euros in Kragujevac directly,” he said.
Fiat’s hard-hitting
CEO Sergio Marchionne made huge waves in Italy in July,
when he unexpectedly announced that he was ripping up
plans to build a next-generation 5- and 7-seat compact
mini-MPV (the successor to Fiat’s current Idea and
Multipla) in the carmaker’s homeland and instead
revealed that their production would be switched to its
recently-acquired, and underused, plant at Kragujevac in
Serbia. Bogged down in difficult negotiations with the
unions over the future of Alfa Romeo’s Pomigliano d’Arco
factory near Naples, he citied uncompetitive Italian
labour issues as being behind the plans. A storm ensued,
as Marchionne was adamant in his belief that Fiat needs
a major structural overhaul of working practices in
Italy if it is to face the future, naming it as the only
country where the carmaker isn’t profitable.
Fiat finally put pen
to paper to acquire Serbian national carmaker Zastava
just as the world was going into financial meltdown, and
the Punto Classic was put back into production at the
factory after it was ditched to make room for new
models, under plans that were subsequently scrapped. The
Punto Classic is the only model to be built in
Kragujevac at present, and even then in small numbers,
despite state incentives; ambitious plans to build the
new-generation, Brazilian-developed Fiat Uno, as well as
the ‘Topolino’ micro car, have thus far failed to
materialise.
The new model – which
is believed to borrow styling cues from the 500 and ride
on the Small platform in short-wheelbase (5-seat) and
long-wheelbase (7-seat) versions – will replace two
cars, the Idea and Multipla. The former never caught on,
in part due to plain styling and basic interior, and in
the marketplace its is often uncompetitively priced when
compared with its better-specified sister, Lancia’s
Musa. The Idea’s footprint outside Italy vanished
without it making an impact, although on its home
market, it still ticks along, with 3,873 sales for the
year-to-date in Italy, having just benefited from a
smattering of MY2011 revisions. The Multipla, meanwhile,
is rapidly approaching the end of its life, and was
always stymied by it love-or-hate styling, but still
continues to sell in Italy, with registrations so far
this year standing at 6,702 units. Fiat has no official
plans to replace the Musa (the next-generation Ypsilon
will have five doors, to cover both current models),
despite it being a real success story for Lancia,
dominating the mini-MPV segment in Italy ever since its
launch by huge margins, although in recent months it has
been knocked off its perch by the arrival of Opel’s new
Meriva. For the year to date, the Musa has 18,000 sales
in Italy.
