If there’s one car company that’s notorious for making promises and/or premature announcements on decisions only to have the projects cancelled, delayed, altered, or even postponed for years (Alfa Romeo’s return to the U.S. is a typical example), it’s the Fiat Group.
In late 2010, the Italian company that also controls the Chrysler Group, revealed plans to update its Mirafiori plant in Turin, Italy, in order to produce larger segment passenger cars and SUVs for the Jeep and Alfa Romeo brands.
Less than a year after the announcement, Bloomberg is now reporting that Fiat is considering moving planned production of the upcoming Jeep and Alfa Romeo SUV models from Turin to a factory in North America, due to the strengthening euro against the dollar.
Citing an inside source who declined to be named before an official announcement is made, the news site said that the Italians would instead assemble a yet-to-be built subcompact car at the Mirafiori plant.
“From a product-mix point of view, it makes a lot of sense,” AT Kearney analyst Marco Santino told Bloomberg news. “The U.S. would keep know-how of SUV building, it would help the launch of Alfa Romeo in North America and it would be a more competitive product due to lower costs of production.”
