Fiat to Move Production
When you think of Fiat you undoubtedly think “Italy,” but the times they are a’ changin’. The Italian car manufacturer has just entered into an agreement to start shipping vehicle production to Serbia of all places. Production will start in 2010 and be around 200,000 vehicles.
Fiat’s CEO Sergio Marchionne responded to the news becoming public by saying:
“Regardless of world economic difficulties, Fiat is working on consolidating its future on its own. There are things we can neither predict nor change but we can create conditions to respond in the fastest and most efficient way. The plant in Kragujevac will initially have capacity for 200,000 cars with a possibility to gradually expand production by 100,000 units.”(Source Reuters)
So now Jaguar is being made in India, and Fiat is being made in Serbia. What’s next? BMW in Portugal? Volvo in Greenland? Brand recognition seems so strongly tied with country of origin in the automobile world. I often wonder if Jaguar will have the same appeal now that it is no longer really a British luxury car, and now if Fiat will corner the market as a Serbian vehicle? I suppose we will just have to wait and see the end product before we will know how people will react to it.
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