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2015 Fiat 500L Living [w/video]

Turning The World's Largest Fiat Into A Larger Three-Row MPV
We've explored every offering of the Fiat 500 family meant for the United States, plus all of the Abarth variations. But the 500 now also comes super-sized; we recently attended a drive of the larger 2014 Fiat 500L people-mover and its Trekking edition, and found them both to be generally enjoyable. We Americans, however, are suckers for anything that comes in an even bigger size than Large, so witness this Fiat 500L Living, which will be landing on our shores sometime in late 2014.
The essential benefit here is that this 500L is bigger (i.e. longer) by 8.3 inches, thereby adding cargo space and, to our eyes, filling out the natural profile of the slightly scrunched design of the standard 500L. You can maximize your 500L Living cargo space to 59.7 cubic feet by knocking down all the seats, or you can opt for the "+2" seating arrangement that sacrifices 3.5 cubic feet of volume for a tantalizing third row of chairs that seems to turn some consumers into dogs of Pavlov, no matter the degree of usefulness of said added row.

European car sales up 8% in February

Three weeks ago an analyst increased projections for European car sales this year, expecting them to climb three percent compared to last year instead of 2.7 percent. That number is a postive sign after years of hard times but it turns out February was especially good, overall European sales climbing eight percent on a wave of southern European recovery and discounts - and this comes after five months of gains including January's 7.2-percent jump over the year before.
The only country of Europe's five largest markets to post a decline was France, just as it did in January, Germany, the UK and Italy posting solid double-digit numbers, Spain rocking the charts with an 18-percent increase because of a government program to encourage trade-ins.
The only brand to miss the wave was Volkswagen, dropping 0.8 percent as it watched the double-digit growth at sister brands Audi, Seat and Skoda lift the Volkswagen Group sales up by seven-percent. Peugeot overcame flat sales at Citroën to improve the group by 3.5 percent, BMW and the Mercedes-Benz/Smart combo rose by four percent, the Fiat group jumped 5.8 percent, Ford was up 11 percent, the Renault Group 11.5 percent, General Motors 12 percent and the Toyota clan by 14 percent.

Fiat mulling purchase of MV Agusta?

Apparently to be a cool automaker in Europe, you have to build motorcycles. Volkswagen Group bought Ducati in 2012, and BMW has made bikes longer than it's made cars (until recently, it also owned Husqvarna). Fiat might be the next automaker to get into the two-wheel business, with rumors flying that it is considering buying cash-strapped Italian sportbike brand MV Agusta.
At the moment, it's all still very much a rumor, but the purchase would certainly seem to help the motorcycle company. However, according to Asphalt and Rubber, the business would need a lot of cash to grow and sustain itself. Fiat might not want to invest so much into a brand that may never be a huge moneymaker.
MV Agusta is best known for its racing success in the '50s and '60s. Until Japanese manufacturers took over the sport, the Italian company was one of the fastest things on two wheels, with a long list of championships in various classes. Recently, it was briefly owned by Harley-Davidson.