The pointed threat is the clearest hint yet made towards cutting excess capacity at Fiat’s major Italian factories, and comes just months after it closed the Termini Imerese factory in Sicily. Marchionne has long seen excess production capacity across Europe as being one of the industry’s biggest challenges, and has frequently railed against political imperatives that have prevented reductions.

Marchionne perceives that Fiat and Chrysler Group plants in Mexico, Canada and Europe will all be needed to fill out a third of US vehicle demand, and that this could prove a lifeline for the Italian plants in light of slowing European demand.

The news was reported by the newspaper Corriere della Serra, which spoke to Marchionne in an attempt to get to grips with the current situation and in doing so, provided a welcome interruption from the series of fawning interviews conducted with the Fiat and Chrysler CEO in recent times. Amongst other points, the interviewer gently mocks Marchionne’s claims as to why new models have not materialised and why hard-won European market share has been given away. But it was in response to an inquiry as to how many plants would be excessive, that Marchionne dropped a strategic bombshell. “All plants will stay in place. We have everything in order to seize the opportunity to work in a competitive way from the perspective of the United States, but if it does not happen, we could withdraw from two of the five sites.” In line with Marchionne’s usual modus operandi, this ‘shock’ pronouncement puts the spectre of plant closures out into the open, an initial overt step in a softening-up process designed to soften the blow of eventual closures.

Asked which sites would be at risk, Marchionne declined to elaborate, but at biggest risk of the axe is the giant Mirafiori factory in Fiat’s hometown, Turin. Even prior to Marchionne’s arrival, Fiat has eyed reductions in the capacity of this historic plant, but it has always been deemed a politically impossible concept to carry out. In recent years, production has been run down to the point where it now assembles only two vehicles – Alfa Romeo’s MiTo and the Lancia Musa mini-MPV, the latter of which is scheduled to end production next year. Although the plant has a capacity of 280,000 units a year, production has ebbed away to just 54,000 units a year. This figure is significantly lower even than the 70,000 units being produced when workers voted in a referendum to accept new plans which never materialised.

Mirafiori has been the subject of several mooted business plans in recent years. In practice, none have stacked up as serious proposals and have been generally regarded as part of a long-term political game being played by Fiat’s hierarchy over the plant’s future. Many observers feel the latest proposal – to assemble a new B-segment Jeep and related replacement for the current Fiat Sedici – is merely the latest step in this game, given the vast discrepancy between Mirafiori’s ultimate capacity and realistic production volumes for these models. For the time being, nevertheless, Marchionne reaffirmed Fiat’s current commitment to this latest plan, stating: “Mirafiori [will] return to [the Fabbrica Italiana plan] by the end of 2014 with a Chrysler and Fiat model.”

Also hanging under a cloud is the Cassino plant near Rome, which assembles the related Fiat Bravo, Lancia Delta and Alfa Romeo Giulietta models. Sales of the Bravo and Delta have long since tailed off, leaving the Giulietta as the plant’s mainstay, although that model too has seen its sales peak early and hasn’t proved as big a hit in volume terms as its predecessor, the 147. However, its new C-Evo architecture has since been evolved for the US market, and if long-standing plans to introduce Alfa Romeo Stateside do ever materialise, this could hand the plant a lifeline in terms of US-destined production of the next generation, as well as potentially spinning other specific US-market vehicles off this strategic platform. Cassino currently has a vastly under-utilised capacity of 300,000 units a year.

Significantly, Marchionne also told Corriere della Sera in last week's interview that the new labour agreements now being introduced in Italy will render Fiat’s domestic operations sufficiently competitive to be able to slot into his global production plans.