2012 Fiat 500 Sport Hatchback 2-door 1.4l on 2040-cars

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Marchionne uses racial epithet to describe what must power future Alfa Romeo models

Sergio Marchionne and his Fiat empire have a lot riding on the US return of the Alfa Romeo brand. The endeavor has been in progress for what feels like a lifetime - certainly for as long as Fiat has had the Chrysler brand under its Italian wing.
It's not surprising that Fiat CEO Marchionne needs a perfect first Alfa to mark a return to America. And here's where things get dicey. Nobody would argue with Marchionne's insistence that Alfa Romeo's be powered by Italian engines - as Marchionne himself is quoted to have said at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show, "There are some things that are well done in Italy."
If not what he said, then, it's how he said it that has eyebrows raised. "I cannot come up with a schlock product, I just won't. I won't put an American engine into that car. With all due respect to my American friends, it needs to be a wop engine." Wait, what's that?

Fiat contemplating sub-brand to compete with Dacia, Datsun

You can add Fiat to the admittedly short list of automakers considering a low-cost brand to rival Dacia. The inexpensive Eastern European brand from Renault-Nissan has performed on the balance sheet like a premium model line, and the money the alliance is taking off the table is encouraging other players to deal themselves in. Pretty soon Nissan's Datsun sub-brand will join the Dacia party, going on sale in Russia, Indonesia and India and will claim even more rubles, rupiahs and rupees for the parent company. Volkswagen recently said it will make a decision this year on a budget line for the Chinese market. With the euthanasia of Lancia and plans to move the Fiat brand upmarket, company CEO Sergio Marchionne wonders aloud to Automotive News Europe whether there could be room for a new budget brand underneath Fiat.
We're told that the initiative has been in the idea box for five years and even moved to the stage of name considerations, like Innocenti, but worries about profit kept it from realization. If such a range were to be developed, Marchionne says it couldn't be built in Italy and stay within budget, and the company is "analyzing its manufacturing capacity outside of Europe to see if a low-cost brand is viable."

Fiat celebrates 30 years of Panda 4x4 with Antartica edition [w/poll]

Typically, 4x4s are rather large affairs, but the Fiat Panda stands resolutely against the trend. And what's more, it's done just that for 30 years now, over the course of which Fiat has rolled out three successive generations and sold over 400,000 examples of the little off-roader that could. So to celebrate three decades of the Panda 4x4, Fiat is rolling out this special edition.
Called the Fiat Panda 4x4 Antartica, it's set to debut next week at the Frankfurt Motor Show alongside a new Black Code trim for the Freemont (known to us as the Dodge Journey) and an anniversary edition Abarth 595. Fiat has based this special edition on the Panda 4x4 Rock and upgraded it with two-tone paint, 15-inch diamond-finish alloys, orange trim, fog lights, tinted glass and special badging. Inside, it's got gray and orange upholstery, and European buyers can order it up with either the 85-horsepower 900cc TwinAir engine or the 75hp 1.3-liter diesel.
A limited run will reach European showrooms by the end of the year. But we wonder... should Fiat consider bringing the Panda Stateside to share floor space with the diminutive 500? Have your say in our informal poll below, and feel free to read through the press release, too.