1980 Fiat 124 Spider on 2040-cars

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2020 Fiat 500X Sport expands lineup and color palette

Fiat trotted out the new and improved 500X at the 2018 LA Auto Show. This year the Italian carmaker follows up at Automobility LA with the new 500X Sport trim intended to bestow a "youthful, sporty appearance" on the 500X lineup. That starts with the Rovente Red hue added to the color palette, "rovente" being Italian for "scorching." The Sport gets a new front fascia that omits the rugged-looking moldings on the Trekking trims, puts fog lights in discrete housings at the lower corners, and paints the lower lip in body color. Along the sides, the normally dark wheel arch liners and side moldings are swapped for body color as well, while the mirrors and door handles get dark-finish accents to go with a Sport badge on the front fender. In back, dark-finish trim across the tailgate and twin, chrome-finish tailpipes let the Fiat clan know this one is the feisty one. Standard fit is a set of 18-inch wheels in a new design. For the first time on the 500X model, 19-inch wheels are an option, wrapped here in Michelin CrossClimate all-season tires. Up top, buyers can take advantage of another new option, a black roof. The interior goes dark top and bottom. Instead of the light-colored upper space, the headliner and pillars have been finished in deep gray materials while the new Sport seats wear black fabric with vinyl inserts and a gray "500" logo. Bright flashes come in the aluminum pedal trim covers and instrument panel bezel finish. The steering wheel invites grip with "techno-leather" and Alcantara, plus proper paddle shifters. Alcantara also adorns the brow over the gauge cluster, the gauges themselves done up with tweaked graphics. Motivation comes from the same 1.3-liter turbocharged four-cylinder found in the rest of the 500X lineup in the U.S., putting out 177 horsepower and 210 pound-feet of torque through a nine-speed automatic to all four wheels with on-demand all-wheel drive.  When the 500X Sport goes on sale in early 2020, dealers will ask $26,895 plus a $1,495 destination charge, for a total of $29,390. Pricing puts the Sport above the $27,740 Trekking while the top trim remains the $30,990 Trekking Plus.

Automakers, dealers are rushing cars to Houston after Harvey

DETROIT — Houston-area car retailers and automakers are rushing to reopen dealerships and beef up inventory to replace many hundreds of thousands of vehicles damaged in flooding from Hurricane Harvey. Pete DeLongchamps, vice president for manufacturer relations at Group 1 Automotive, the third-largest U.S. auto dealer group, said the company prepared for the storm with a plan designed after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This included moving moved inventory to higher ground and cleaning roof drains to avoid cave-ins. Group 1 thus lost a "relatively small percentage" of inventory and reopened its roughly 25 dealerships in the Houston and Beaumont area by Thursday. "Things have been moving fast and furious with a large number of tow-ins already," DeLongchamps said. "Our customers have lost a lot of vehicles, we need to help them replace." Harvey brought record flooding to Houston and killed at least 35 people. The storm is expected to briefly depress already slowing U.S. auto sales but could eventually help boost demand as damaged cars are replaced. Automakers report U.S. August sales on Friday. Estimates for the number of Harvey-damaged vehicles needing replacement range up to 500,000. By Thursday, AutoNation, the largest U.S. auto retail chain, had reopened its 17 Houston stores and is moving cars and trucks from other regions, company spokesman Marc Cannon said. The company plans to move 500 to 1,000 used cars to an AutoNation USA used car store and stage a sale Sept. 21-23, when many would-be buyers should have insurance checks to replace destroyed vehicles, Cannon said. AutoNation is still assessing how many vehicles it lost, but it too moved vehicles to higher ground ahead of the storm. General Motors spokesman Jim Cain said the number of damaged vehicles at dealerships "is relatively modest." "But there are still several dealerships that are inaccessible, so the number will increase," he said. GM will move new and used vehicles to Houston, "but it won't be done until the infrastructure and our dealers are ready." Ford is still assessing damage and inventory needs, a spokeswoman said. CarMax, the biggest U.S. used car dealer, will reopen its six Houston area stores on Labor Day, spokeswoman Claire Hunter said. "We are mobilizing additional inventory to the region as we speak," Hunter said. Paul Lips, chief operating officer at ADESA, a unit of KAR Auction Services Inc., which with Manheim dominates the U.S.

4 ways FCA-PSA merger could be a plus

DETROIT — In a merger deal announced overnight, Fiat Chrysler stands to gain electric vehicle technology while PSA Peugeot Citroen could benefit from a badly needed dealership network to reach its goal of selling vehicles in the U.S. The merger would create the world's fourth-largest automaker with a combined market value of around $50 billion. Neither company would comment. Experts say the two automakers will be able to share car, SUV and commercial vehicle designs, helping each other fill weaknesses and share costs that will make them a strong global player. "We view the combination of these two companies as reasonable given global competition, high capital intensity, and industry disruption from electrified powertrain as well as autonomous technologies," Morningstar analyst Richard Hilgert wrote in a note to investors. Here are four areas that could be crucial to the two automakers' success: Technology For years, Fiat Chrysler has lagged its rivals in electric vehicle technology, with its former CEO once trying to discourage people from buying its only fully electric car in the United States, the Fiat 500E, because he lost money on each sale. The company has made progress on gas-electric hybrids and may have plans for more fully electric vehicles, but PSA has valuable technology that FCA can use, said Navigant Research analyst Sam Abuelsamid. Peugeot was relatively late to the electric vehicle game but is now working fast to catch up, notably with fellow French rival Renault. CEO Carlos Tavares has made a point of stressing the company's need to adapt to changing technology at car shows and earnings calls. Last year he announced plans to offer 40 electric models across its lineup by 2025. "Electrification hasn't been a huge part of their play up until now," Abuelsamid said. "Between the two of them, I think they could generate some scale for whatever they're doing, sharing component costs, development costs across electrical platforms," he said. More electric vehicles also would help FCA meet pollution and fuel economy regulations in Europe. As far as autonomous vehicles, neither company is among the leaders, Abuelsamid said. But that's a technology that's years into the future, giving them time to share the huge expenses and catch up together. FCA also has alliances with other companies such as Google spinoff Waymo that could bring autonomous vehicle technology to the market when ready, Abuelsamid said.