Currently reading: Fiat chiefs confirm Lancia to only sell cars in Italy
Struggling company to be slimmed down as parent company Fiat Chrysler Automobiles focuses on brands with greater global sales potential

Lancia is to become an Italy-only brand, the chiefs of parent company Fiat Chrysler Automobiles have confirmed, and the long-term future for the legendary Turin brand remains unclear.

Lancia was conspicuous by its near-absence from the presentation of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ plans for its individual brands over the next five years. One of the few mentions of Lancia came in a presentation made by Alfredo Altavilla, Chief Operating Officer for the Europe, Africa and Middle East (EMEA).

Referring to FCA’s dealer network across the region, Altavilla said the plan was to “reorganise the network coherently with Lancia becoming an Italy-driven brand”. This reaffirms the relatively insignificant position the Lancia brand occupies in the new-look Fiat-Chrysler organisation, a topic touched upon by Sergio Marchionne at the Geneva motor show back in March.

When Fiat and Chrysler first got together, Marchionne saw close synergies between Lancia and Chrysler, and launched a glut of badge-engineered Chryslers as Lancias in Europe. In the UK, the reverse happened, with Chrysler models joined by badge-engineered versions of the Ypsilon and Delta.

The plan has not been a success, with Fiat chief Sergio Marchionne confirming earlier this year that all the Lancia-badged Chryslers were to be axed, along with the Delta, meaning Lancia would have just one model, the Ypsilon, which will only be sold in Italy.

At the Geneva show Marchionne said: “We have curtailed our ambitions for Lancia. The market has moved on and not every opportunity can be realised.”

FCA’s sales expectations for the EMEA region for 2018 has the Lancia, Chrysler, Dodge and Ram brands contributing 80,000 sales towards the group’s total volume of 1.5m vehicles. But while key FCA companies such as Jeep, Alfa Romeo and Fiat are expected to make significant sales rises as part of the five-year plan, Lancia’s sales are predicted to remain stagnant.

By 2018 the current Ypsilon would be coming to the end of its model life, which could seem a natural point at which to phase out the Lancia brand entirely.

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Mark Tisshaw

mark-tisshaw-autocar
Title: Editor

Mark is a journalist with more than a decade of top-level experience in the automotive industry. He first joined Autocar in 2009, having previously worked in local newspapers. He has held several roles at Autocar, including news editor, deputy editor, digital editor and his current position of editor, one he has held since 2017.

From this position he oversees all of Autocar’s content across the print magazine, autocar.co.uk website, social media, video, and podcast channels, as well as our recent launch, Autocar Business. Mark regularly interviews the very top global executives in the automotive industry, telling their stories and holding them to account, meeting them at shows and events around the world.

Mark is a Car of the Year juror, a prestigious annual award that Autocar is one of the main sponsors of. He has made media appearances on the likes of the BBC, and contributed to titles including What Car?Move Electric and Pistonheads, and has written a column for The Sun.

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concinnity 8 May 2014

Lanciaisation nearly complete.

What they have achieved with Lancia, which is it's ending, they will now start with Alfa Romeo.
Ali_ 8 May 2014

What happened to Lancia

What happened to Lancia taking on Jaguar and Mercedes while Alfa tackled BMW and Audi? It made sense and, with the new platforms, could actually finally come true if someone knew what they were doing. How Lancia were meant to take on Merc with an odd looking supermini, a refrocked Bravo (though the Delta was a surprisingly good and extremely spacious family car) and some rebadged Chryslers is beyond me. Alfa is at least still alive and kicking, if greatly reduced in models, but Lancia deserves far better.
Moparman 7 May 2014

A sad end

The writing has been on the wall for some time, unfortunately, as the marque continued to receive short-shrift from Fiat. Considering the wonderful cars Lancia blessed us with going all the way back to the Double Lambda up through the Delta Integrale it is a sad end to a marque that deserves to go out with a bang than a whimper.