F&I Management & Training

Fiat and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne (pictured) is aiming for a six-fold increase in Chrysler Jeep sales in the UK.

In his five year plan for Fiat/Chrysler in the UK sales of Chrysler Jeep are targeted to grow from 4,300 over the past year to 29,000 by 2014.

In the past the group has sold more than 22,000 cars a year in the UK.

Fiat UK managing director Andrew Humberstone and Chrysler UK director Nigel Land plan to expand the dealer network from the current 48 to 70 by 2012 and 90 by 2014.

The first recruitment will be in the big cities where Chrysler and Jeep are under-represented. Existing Fiat and Alfa Romeo dealers are favoured candidates.

A key part of the Fiat deal is the integration of the Chrysler and Lancia brands.

In left-hand drive markets of Western Europe, Chrysler will disappear in favour of an expanded Lancia range.

But in the UK and Ireland, where Lancia withdrew from the market in 1994, the Chrysler brand is being retained, Lancia will not be introduced and Dodge is axed.

In June 2011 dealers will get the Chrysler Delta and later the smallest-ever Chrysler, the Ypsilon, a clone of Lancia’s new city car to be launched this coming spring.

Jeep continues as a stand-alone brand which in the UK will have a freshened range of US-built cars consisting of the new Grand Cherokee, the classic Wrangler, and two ‘soft-roaders’, the Patriot and the Compass.

DATED: 22.12.10

FEED: MT