“The good thing about at least parts of our business is that they are in cash-generation mode. The U.S. is in good shape,” said Marchionne. “Latin America is in good shape; Europe continues to be a big area of concern.” Nevertheless, Marchionne is satisfied that Fiat’s future position is tenable. “We have enough liquidity to meet our needs for a while yet,” he was quoted by the AGI newswire as saying last Wednesday.

The Fiat brand has been the primary villain of the piece in Europe. With 59,152 sales last month, it was only the tenth-best-performing brand, down 13.1 percent year-on-year, according to automotive research agency JATO Dynamics. Remarkably, it was outsold by all three of the German prestige brands: Audi (64,223 units), Mercedes-Benz (59,785) and BMW (59,508), and was unable to register a single model in the European top ten for September. In contrast to Fiat’s struggles, the Volkswagen brand is up 8.1 percent for the year to date, and all the German carmaker’s divisions are in positive territory for the first nine months of the year.

Fiat’s key problems revolve around a lack of investment in new models, along with management which shows little interest in ending its overreliance on its key domestic market (more than half the Fiat brand’s European sales last month came from Italy), which combined has seen sales down 11.3 percent year-on-year. “This country right now is in gridlock and you need something to snap it out of its stupor,” Marchionne was quoted last week by the Wall Street Journal as saying about the situation in Italy. But blame could be said to lie closer to home – Fiat has failed to demonstrate any interest in one of the key potential growth ‘clusters’ just north of Italy, focused around Vienna, Prague, Zagreb and several other cities, where there are no domestic brands. All are effectively on its doorstep and, historically, there have been openings for Italian influence and Fiat penetration.

The cost of integrating the Chrysler Group is also putting pressure on Fiat’s finances right at a time when it is itself struggling, and this was cited as the core reason that ratings agency Fitch this week dropped Fiat’s creditworthiness to two notches below investment grade, following actions taken by its rivals earlier in the autumn. Fiat’s share price has also suffered this year, down by around a third.

The imminent arrival of the new Panda will be a huge, and crucial, boost for Fiat’s embattled Italian dealers especially as the carmaker has taken its eye off the small car ball in recent years – the one area where it has established strength and expertise, as well as a key segment during an economic downturn. However, the Panda will face tough opposition in A-segment from VW’s new Up! for the first time, meaning margins might have to be narrower than would otherwise be the case. The arrival of the brand-new, fourth-generation Lancia Ypsilon, as well a recent trio of rebadged Chrysler Group models – the Fiat Freemont (Dodge Journey), Lancia Thema (Chrysler 300) and Lancia Voyager (Chrysler Voyager) – should also help add some positive sales momentum.