Unusually, Alfa Romeo experienced the softest fall amongst the Fiat Group Automobiles (FGA) brands last month, dropping five hundred units and 16.33 percent to 2,562 units. The Group's niche brands all struggled, Jeep was down 20.86 percent to 516 units, Ferrari lost 69.23 percent of its sales after shifting just 4 cars, while Maserati's volumes dropped by more that a half (-57.14 percent) to 9 units.

For the full year of 2012 Fiat Group's decline continued and its 415,288 units gave it a market share of 29.62 percent on a par with 2011 when it took a 29.49 percent share of all Italian sales.

The Fiat brand ended last year with 294,778 units sold, down seventy thousand units and 18.86 percent on 2011. That slightly outperformed the overall market and allowed Fiat to raise its market share from 20.76 percent in 2011 to 21.02 percent for the year just closed.

Lancia sold 71,418 cars last year, down fourteenth thousand units and 16.53 percent year-on-year. That actually made it the strongest performer from FGA in year-on-year terms and tipped its market share up from 4.89 percent in 2011 to 5.09 percent in 2012.

Alfa Romeo sold just 42,174 cars in Italy last year a slump of sixteen thousand units and 27.51 percent on 2011. Its market share slipped slightly from 3.33 percent in 2011 to 3.01 percent last year.

Finally the token brands also incurred losses, Jeep was down 17.22 percent to 6,555 units which gave it a 0.47 percent market share, Ferrari lost more than half its sales (-56.49 percent) to finish 2012 with 248 units sold while it was an even more dismal year on home turf for Maserati which lost nearly three quarters of its volumes (-72.42 percent) to finish the year having managed to find just 115 customers on its home market.

The Fiat Panda ended the year as Italy's best selling car with 117,758 sold between January and December, sales standing up thanks to the arrival of the new-third generation model at the start of the year. Meanwhile the Punto faded even further and ended the year with just 79,685 units sold. Lancia's new Ypsilon, despite slipping as the year closed out, was the third best seller on 44,417 units, while Fiat's 500 made it a top four lockout for FGA with 42,918 sold. Making it five FGA models in the full year top ten, Alfa Romeo's Giulietta was ninth on 29,869 units.

For the record, the final month of the year saw the Panda as Italy's best seller with 6,765 finding customers and the Punto was second on 4,432 units. The 500 was sixth with 2,330 sold just one place ahead of the new 500L on 2,247 units. The final FGA representative in the December top ten was the Ypsilon which faded away to tenth with 2,017 sold.

For the full year of 2012 the Punto was Italy's second best selling diesel car with 25,638 units being fitted with Multijet powerplants. The VW Golf (28,158) was Italy's best selling diesel. The Giulietta was the third best selling diesel for the full year, on 19,978 units, while the final FGA diesel in the top ten was the Panda in ninth on 16,042 units.

The December top ten diesel sellers in fact saw a shakeup with the Panda (1,857) top ahead of the new 500L (1,466) and the Punto (1,204) fourth. FGA's presence in the December diesel top ten was wrapped up by the Giulietta (1,159) in sixth and the Fiat Freemont (889) in tenth.

Elsewhere, Lamborghini saw only one of its sports cars registered in December to help it to full year total sales of just 60 cars, down 16.67 percent on 2011. Finally, DR Motor, which imports selected models from China's Chery in CKD format, added 29 cars in December, down 69.15 percent year-on-year. For the full year it has slumped to just 710 sales, down 76.83 percent when compared to 2011.