The fact Fiat actually has some excellent product to market and sell seems to be of nothing to the company. The Fiat Ireland operation is now run out of the UK and, frankly, we are treated like some part of Lanarkshire or some other forlorn part of that union. That’s a long time by anyone’s reckoning. The last Fiat I drove was in March that year. It tells its own story that it is September 2017 since Examiner Motoring last drove a Fiat product - and that was an Alfa. In short, once-thriving dealers were left with a complete absence of decent product, no marketing of that product, and no PR back-up to at least get motoring hacks to write about what little good was coming out of Turin. Thirdly, a complete lack of product marketing here consigned whatever the company subsequently made into the dustbin of anonymity. Great names such as Panda, Punto, and Tipo disappeared nearly overnight. Secondly, the company made a series of disastrous calls when it came to car production and its traditional A, B, C, and D segment contenders vanished into the ether.
What happened? Well, like most such catastrophes, there was a combination of factors.įirst up, the Irish-based Fiat PR machine - once one of the slickest and most well-oiled in the business - collapsed after several key figures were either sidelined or dispatched altogether and the on-street joke that Fiat was an acronym for ‘fix it again tomorrow’ gained credence in the face of any contradictory evidence. That said it is comfortable, pragmatic, and not without a degree of charm. The Fiat Panda interior may not exactly exude class, but it is functional and not overburdened with unnecessary tech, as you might assume from the price. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what’s known as a collapse in market share. Last year Fiat sold a total of 219 vehicles in Ireland. Indeed, the connections between the Irish and Italian motoring fraternities were so close as to be nearly incestuous.įiat regularly sold anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 units here annually. The fact we bought - and largely loved - bunches of Fiats, Lancias, and Alfas only confirmed to your regular Italian that we were sound of mind, body, and purpose. It was all baloney, sure, but it made sense if you were Italian and looking beyond your own borders at the hordes of unbelievers and heretics across the rest of Europe, Ireland was a beacon of hope.
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