By Leow Ju-Len

THERE’S NO DENYING that Fiat has been on the ropes. Years of losses at Fiat the car company have spooked Fiat the conglomerate, to the extent that the founding Agnelli family once considered selling off the troubled division.

But change is in the air, and the ailing automaker looks to be slowly but steadily regaining its health. Losses are narrowing, with a $4 billion deficit in 2004 expected to slim down to a $718 million loss this year, according to figures from
The Economist. Fiat Auto, which includes the Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Maserati and Ferrari brands, is also regaining its product direction under the direction of Sergio Marchionne, a
Canadian-Italian who thinks in English.

The group CEO wants to see more Italian flamboyance in Fiat’s design, and has drafted in Frank Stephenson, a designer from the Ferrari division, whose credits include BMW’s hot-selling Mini.

The Croma already wears the new face of Fiat, and the upcoming Punto Grande and Stilo models will sport the same family looks that are easily recognised from a distance. Other models will be facelifted to bring them into line.

All future Alfas will be built off a single platform, allowing them to share major components (and thus, save costs), while Maserati models will be engineered to have common parts with them.

Altogether, Fiat will invest a staggering $20 billion into vehicle development, and at the same time, Mr Marchionne plans to strike strategic alliances with other carmakers like Ford and Suzuki. These will be carried out alongside existing collaborations with the Peugeot-Citroen group.

The outcome of all that effort is that more than 20 new cars will make their debut before the end of the decade.

Mr Marchionne expects to see concrete results far sooner than that, however. He intends for Fiat to break even as early as next year. So far he’s had a track record of keeping promises to investors, too. Which means that though
Fiat may be down, it’s far from being out.