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Share price falls on skepticism of Chrysler-Fiat five-year plan

Following this week's Fiat Chrysler extravaganza, where the Italian-American manufacturer announced its plans for the next five years, the Autoblog staff was cautiously optimistic of the company's future. Investors? Not so much.
Fiat saw its shares tumble 12 percent in Wednesday's trading, falling from 8.67 euros ($12.06 at today's rates) to 7.44 euros ($10.35) as of this writing, with blame partly going to the Italian half of the FCA marriage, which recorded a pretty significant drop in profits during the first quarter of this year.
The plan, which will cost around $77 billion over the next several years, is facing criticism from investors thanks in part to a 1.4-percent drop in Fiat's first-quarter profits, to 622 million euros ($862 million). That figure is also short of Bloomberg analysts' projections, which predicted $1.18 billion in profits before taxes, interest and one-time items.

2014 Quattroporte kicks off 50th anniversary for Maserati with new V6, AWD

It's not that often that we get to talk about a new Maserati model, but that's all about to change. The Italian automaker is using the 2014 Quattroporte to begin a lineup expansion that will soon grow to no fewer than five models. Entering its sixth generation, the Quattroporte has been completely redesigned, and is also adding a new V6 engine and all-wheel drive.
Pictures of the car were released last year and we've even had the chance to drive the car in France already, but we finally got to see both the 410-horsepower V6 and 530-hp V8 versions of the car at its debut at the Detroit Auto Show. The new Quattroporte is 100-percent Maserati with its svelte-ye-aggressive styling, but it adds more of a mainstream look to better compete with the growing number of high-end luxury sedans. Not all of the Autoblog staff consider it an improvement, but it doesn't stray too far from the Italian styling of the last model.
The interior has also been brought up to date with modern infotainment technology and improved luxury courtesy of a longer wheelbase bringing more space to rear-seat occupants. While the V8 we drove had a bench rear seat and oddly retro-modern wheels, the car on display had more conventional wheels and the two-passenger rear seat bucket seat layout.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles: The next five years

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 24 hours, you've no doubt read about all of the big future product news coming out of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles today. We had individual brand reports from Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Maserati and even Ferrari, but in the interest of simplifying and summarizing, we're going to list out the hard facts once more. Of course, with all of this still off in the future, there's still the possibility that a few changes will be made. But as of what we know right now, here's what's coming, and what's going away.
Chrysler
2014: Refreshed 300/300C, debuting at Los Angeles Auto Show