It has been among the longest set of death throes ever, but Fiat has finally decided to pull the plug on European sales of the Chrysler brand. The classic American nameplate had stumbled to a halt in the past two years. Just 12 Chrysler badged cars were sold here in 2013, and the brand only struggled back up to 22 sales last year. Worse still, the official stats for Ireland treat Jeeps as Chryslers, so 16 of those sales were in fact Jeep Cherokees, meaning that actual Chrysler accounted for just six sales last year.
Chrysler had been twinned with ailing Lancia in the Fiat-Chrysler empire, but the lack of interest in either brand (except solely in Italy where the small Lancia Ypsilon will be kept in production) has finally killed both off.
FCA will be hoping that its ambitious plans for the Jeep brand will not falter on the same rocks that holed the Chrysler-Lancia marriage. Jeep has hauled in massive sales worldwide but both Ireland and the UK remain tough nuts for it to crack. Possibly, the newly-arriving compact Renegade model will begin to turn that around.
