Size of FIAT

[CARIBOULH <CARIBOULH@domain.elided>]

Jeff Hanbury had written in ICD #27...

<<<< ...a Norwegian Internet newspaper which states that Fiat is Europe's
largest auto manufacturer. Can anybody  verify this? BMW (and others) put
their end of year reports online but it doesn't seem that Fiat does.>>>>

Sorry for the slight delay in answering this one as it was asked on Jan. 13th,
but I had to obtain the following information from Europe:

European Sales by Manufacturer, January through December 1997:
Volkswagen - 2,301,822
General Motors - 1,623,566
Fiat Group - 1,597,422
Puegeot - 1,516,024
Ford - 1,507,598
Renault - 1,326,185
BMW Group (includes Rover) - 821,198
Mercedes - 495,148
Nissan - 400,872
Toyota - 372,575
Volvo - 231,540
Honda - 216,218
Mazda - 184,834
Mitsubishi - 176,289
Suzuki - 138,716
and less than 100,000 units each: Chrysler, Subaru, Daihatsu, Lada, etc.

Please note that you also have here the reason that Fiat does not return to
North America. Even if they could INSTANTLY sell 100,000 cars a year here
(extremely, extremely unlikely), an additional 100,000 cars would only add 6%
(well 6.2% to be exact) to their sales volume. For all the hassle involved...
WHY BOTHER???

Only this past year, 1997, did Mercedes finally surpass 100,000 sales for THE
FIRST TIME in North America, and how long has it taken them to do so??? 40
years?

The likeliness of Fiat showing up on our shores and being able to generate any
type of sales volume to make the smallest contribution to their WORLD-WIDE
sale volume is essentially zero. So don't hold your breath to buy new Fiats...
just fix-up the old ones we still have. They're all we will see here for a
long, long time.

Best Wishes,

Ed at
Caribou Imports, Inc.
NOW... the largest Fiat parts supplier in the Western U.S.
visit us on the Web at:
http://members.aol.com/CARIBOULH