History may be about to repeat itself — for Fiat.
The Italian automaker’s first U.S. model since 1987 is
apparently a flop… so far, at least.
According to the Detroit News and
DailyTech, only about 12,000 Fiat 500s have been sold to
date — which is barely a fourth of the 50,000 units annually
projected by Fiat management.
But this time, it’s probably not the car that’s the
problem.
Small, fuel-efficient — and fun — cars are very much in.
Minis are moving, despite some significant early teething problems
with quality control. The Mazda3 is popular, too, and it’s only
slightly larger than the 500.
The difference?
The dealers.
In Fiat’s case, there aren’t any. Or rather, there are far
too few.
In Virginia, for instance, there are only three Fiat
stores — and they’re all clustered in Northern Virginia within 50
miles of downtown Washington, D.C. Two of them — the Vienna and
Alexandria stores — are within 20 miles of each other.
This means that anyone potentially interested in a 500 who
doesn’t actually live within the D.C. Beltway is very likely going
to cross the 500 off their list simply because it’s too much of a
hassle to go look at one. Let alone face the prospect, down the
road, of having to do overnight (or at least, all-day) drives to a
dealership that’s 100, 150 or 200 miles from home.
I did a little checking and it’s easier to find a Porsche
dealer in my part of Virginia than it is to find a Fiat store.
There’s one here in Roanoke — 200 miles away from Northern
Virginia. The closest Fiat store to me is in Richmond — a three
hour drive (one way) away.
Now, I really like the 500. In fact, I like it better than
the Mini, because it’s just as cute and equally fun to drive but
costs $4,000 less ($15,00 to start vs. $19,500). It also gets 2-3
MPG better gas mileage than the Mini. For the money, it’s hard to
beat. And money notwithstanding, the 500 is a neat little car; a
low-cost runabout that’s highway-viable (unlike the idiotic
SmartCar two-seater) but not a depressing little outhouse,
either.
There’s a lot of aftermarket support for these cars and
Fiat sells a hopped-up Abarth version that I’d be very
interested in.
But I would not buy one because of the dealer
scarcity-remoteness issue.
And it’s madness for Fiat management to believe anyone
other than the most dedicated, gotta-have-this-car people will,
either.
I mean, would you?
Porsche can afford to be hard-to-get. It is an iconic
brand and Porsche-o-philes would probably be willing — no, happy
— to crawl on their hands and knees for 100 miles merely for the
privilege of being permitted to enter a Porsche dealership. And
then pay full MSRP plus 10 percent.
Fiat can’t do that.
In fact, Fiat management ought to know it must do
precisely the opposite. That is, do the equivalent of crawling on
its hands and knees to potential customers, in order to entice them
into giving the 500 — and Fiat — a shot at their
business.
Remember: This is a brand that most Americans under 45
have no living memory of. Or, they have bad memories of. As in
Fix It Again
Tony.
To overcome that — to get people to even look — you’ve
gotta make it easy as well as enticing for them to do so. Make it
hard and — well, forget about it.
Right?
The part that really mystifies is that Fiat — the new
owner of Chrysler — has access to Chrysler’s vast dealer network.
Indeed, access to Chrysler’s vast dealer network was, reportedly,
the only real reason for Fiat’s investment in the otherwise
belly-up Chrysler brand. Yet Fiat decided, for reasons I cannot
fathom, not to sell the 500 through the existing network of
Chrysler dealers.
Of which, by the way, there are many.
Or at least, a sufficiency.
We have two in or near Roanoke. Two more in Richmond. Five
more — from what I dug up — in Northern Virginia. And of those
five, three are spread out roughly mid-way between Roanoke (at the
southern end of the state), Richmond (in the middle) and Northern
Virginia, near DC. Most people interested in looking at or
test-driving a new Chrysler, or Jeep or Dodge can find a dealer
within an hour (or even a half-hour) of where they live. Very few
would need to drive more than about 50 miles to do so.
So, why not Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Fiat?
I wanted to ask Laura Soave, the Fiat North America
honcho. Except she just got fired.
I wonder why.…
