It wasn’t so long ago that Stellantis, that astronomical name to which we’ve all grown accustomed, was two separate companies: Fiat-Chrysler and Peugeot. In merging the Italian-American conglomerate with the French one, Stellantis formed as a sort of nation-agnostic automaker based financially in Amsterdam, but operating everywhere.
But that’s not how Italy sees things. To them, Stellantis is successor to FCA and Fiat before it — a national treasure, a source of pride for the whole country. So it only makes sense that Italy would want the automaker to keep producing vehicles domestically, going so far as to pen an agreement between the Italian government and Stellantis to boost Italian production to one million units per year.
It seems Stellantis’ plan to reach this number, which it last achieved in 2017, rests with the introduction of a new Italian-built model. There’s not much else we know about that upcoming car, but there are a few choice details in the press release for us to work from. Reuters has the details:
Stellantis, Italy’s sole large automaker, produced fewer than 700,000 vehicles in the country both last year and in 2021, as it was hit by a global shortage of microchips and other components.
As a first fruit of this effort, the Franco-Italian group said in a statement it had plans to introduce future production of a fifth model at its Melfi plant in southern Italy.
Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares had met Italy’s Industry Minister Adolfo Urso in Rome earlier on Monday and they agreed on the need to boost vehicle output in the country, home to other Stellantis brands including Alfa Romeo and Maserati.
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Tavares last week said “high cost” countries, such us France or Italy, could only be home for high value cars, to balance affordability for customers and profitability for the company.
So we’ll see a high-dollar automobile, likely from Alfa Romeo or Maserati, built in Italy to satisfy this new government agreement. Whether it will be an opulent crossover, a high-performance sedan, or something else entirely remains to be seen.