italiaspeed.com

At the 81st Geneva Motor Show this week Fiat Automobiles has dedicated a special zone on its stand to its powertrain technologies, showcasing the engines for visitors to examine close up as well as a 500 equipped with the 900cc bi-cylinder unit.

Fiat finally turned round a long decline in Germany last month to post a 4 percent year-on-year improvement in sales while Alfa Romeo continued to climb sharply, up 62.2 percent against an overall market rise of 15.2 percent. In total 224,426 new cars were sold in Germany last month a very similar year-on-year rise to January as Europe's biggest new car market starts the year on a positive note. Although Fiat was well within positive territory it was however still the second worst performing volume brand on the German market for the month.

The Fiat brand, which has suffered a dismal time in Germany since government incentives were wound down, sold 5,222 cars last month, a 4 percent year-on-year rise which was a third of that managed by the market meaning it's share slipped slightly to 2.3 percent. Fiat's sales improvement had started in January when it posted a 6.8 percent year-on-year fall in sales, this was a significant improvement on previous months although its trimmed losses are down to the overall market going into positive mode.

Alfa Romeo continues to be driven by demand for the new Giulietta on most major markets across Europe and the new C-segment hatchback helped it to 863 sales in Germany last month, a 62.2 percent year-on-year rise. That gave Alfa Romeo a 0.4 percent market share for the month and made it the fourth best performing brand in February after Lada (+112.4 percent), Subaru (+86.1 percent) and Porsche (+71.9 percent). Meanwhile Lancia manages to keep reducing its market share in Germany, just 87 cars sold in February was down 29.8 percent year-on-year and left it with the wooden spoon for February as the worst performing brand.

After the first two months of 2011 the German new car market has seen a total of 435,482 registrations, up 15.8 percent on the same period last year. Fiat has turned in 10,140 sales for the year-to-date which is almost flat year-on-year (+1.5 percent). That gives it a 2.3 percent share of all sales so far this year. Fiat Automobiles was however one of only seven brands to underperform the overall market, Lancia and the Chrysler Group also achieved this distinction, while the final three laggards were made up of Nissan/Infiniti (-3.7 percent), Citroën (-5 percent), Peugeot (-10.1 percent) and Daihatsu (-49.8 percent).

Alfa Romeo meanwhile has 1,690 sales for the year-to-date and is up 64.6 percent year-on-year for that period to take a 0.4 percent share of all sales. That makes Alfa Romeo the fourth best performing brand for the opening two months of the year behind Lada (+82.7 percent), Subaru (+76.3 percent) and Volvo (+75.9 percent). Other big winners for the year-to-date included Mitsubishi (+64.3 percent) and Porsche (+58.1 percent). After the opening two months of the year the Lancia brand has managed to sell just 164 cars, down 28.7 percent year-on-year. For the year-to-date only Daihatsu (-49.8 percent has fared worse.

The Chrysler Group, which is now 25 percent owned by Fiat, saw its sales fall last month, although two of its three brands (Chrysler and Dodge) are being phased out of the German market so its total (including Jeep) of 385 units gave it a 0.2 share of the market and put it down 9.8 percent year-on-year. After the first two months of the year the Chrysler Group has a total of 732 sales in Germany, again a 0.2 percent share of the market but down 4.8 percent for the same period last year.