Speaking at the UK market Jeep Renegade media launch, top Fiat Chrysler Automobiles executives on Thursday (19 March) confirmed – as already widely reported – the automaker is pulling the Chrysler brand out of the UK market after a number of ultimately unsuccessful attempts to kick start the marque under various ownerships dating back to the early 1990s.
Even since joining forces with Fiat, and rebadging the Lancia Delta and Ypsilon as rebadged Chryslers to sell alongside the US-built 300 and Grand Voyager [Town and Country in the US], the nameplate has not resonated with British buyers. It mirrors the failure of General Motors’ iconic US brand names Chevrolet and Cadillac which were also unable to excite UK drivers.
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FCA will now concentrate on Jeep in Great Britain. Managing director and head of the European, Middle East and Africa region, Steve Zanlunghi, said Jeep is one of the fastest growing nameplates in the country.
“Our sales this year are already running 26% ahead of 2014 and this is before Renegade goes into the showrooms. We are particularly pleased to be growing in the home market of Land Rover although, to put things into perspective, Jeep sales worldwide totalled 1.02m against 380,000 Land Rovers.”
Jeep has also made up with its dealers in the UK who in 2012 were leaking money with a return on sales of minus 2.1%. The network has now risen to 76, up from 50 three years ago, and their return on sales is now averaging a positive 1.5%. Zanlunghi said they will now be twinned with Alfa Romeo and will move move to a more premium look with a new corporate identity also to be rolled out in the coming months.
“We also have more new product coming with a C-SUV in 2017 and the Grand Wagoneer in 2018 so we will have six car showrooms along with Wrangler, Renegade, Cherokee and Grand Cherokee.”
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By GlobalDataZanlunghi said he expected Jeep’s UK sales to grow from 4,000 four years ago to over 10,000 this year. Helping this will be availability of the European-built Renegade, assembled alongside its Fiat sister model, the 500X, at the giant Melfi plant in southern Italy.
“We have been restricted by supply from the US but the pipeline from Italy will be a lot easier.”
FCA’s UK logistics chief Carlo Saracco explained the high automation and flexibility at Melfi allowed customers to make changes or adjustments to their orders, including colour, up to two weeks before assembly.
But will US customers now be restricted by the length of the supply pipeline from Europe? “Not at all,” said Saracco. “There is a different dynamic to buying cars in the US where customers will generally choose a model from the dealers’s lot.”
