FIAT Dominated March Sales In Brazil, Thanks To Its Pickup Lineup!

[Jared B]

FIAT Dominated March Sales In Brazil, Thanks To Its Pickup Lineup!​

Fiat Strada and Toro Account For 55.1% Of The Countries Trucks!​

While the FIAT brand has struggled to gain any traction in the North American marketplace, the Italian brand is celebrating its successes in Brazil. The FIAT brand closed the month of March in Brazil, with a record 38,043 units sold or 21.4% of the market share. That is the brand’s greatest performance since August 2014.

FIAT Dominated March Sales In Brazil, Thanks To Its Pickup Lineup!

While the FIAT brand has struggled to gain any traction in the North American marketplace, the Italian brand is celebrating its successes in Brazil. The FIAT brand closed the month of March in Brazil, with a record 38,043 units sold or 21.4% of the market share. That is the brand's greatest...

moparinsiders.com

 

[redriderbob]

Modern-day Ram 50...

 

[bill burke]

I believe a one year exploratory study be launched, perhaps through dealerships in Texas and maybe another state to test the sales potential of these trucks in the North American market, of course, with Ram branding. This would not preclude a mid-size Ram pickup, hopefully far along in development, with a compact offering. Based on the article and the visual appeal of the Toro and Strada, there might be a market here.
I would also test market some Peugeot products in a similar way to see if they can be mildly tweeked and branded as Chrysler’s to see if a potential market exists here. I’d loan them if necessary.
To dismiss this strategy of reskining and rebranding popular global vehicles seems to be a lost opportunity. Might be a big surprise.

 

[Stephen]

A good idea.
I also wonder if such vehicles might work in Australia, where the best sellers are currently the Toyota Hilux and Ford Ranger.
These smaller utes "pickups" might just have a market waiting.

 

[KrisW]

Strada may not meet US crash standards (it has not been designed for them), and in any case would be too small for the typical American pickup buyer (it's smaller than a Toyota Corolla).
Toro, on the other hand, uses the same architecture as Compass, which means it should be relatively straightforward to modify for US requirements.

RHD conversion aside, Toro should be practically road-legal already in Australia - it meets European standards. Despite not being offered for sale in Europe, FIAT supplied a couple of hundred directly to the Italian fire service a couple of years ago.

FIAT is also rumored to be working on a mid-size pickup in Brazil, bigger than Toro but on the same (unibody) architecture, which definitely should be given a shot in the USA - Remember that Toluca can build anything in this family. No doubt, the purists will wail at "unibody", but the people who like the image of pickups but hate the high price, sloppy handling and poor fuel economy of BoF will run to the dealers. (We've been here before with SUVs)