Fiat Finito

Leaving the U.S. market

Regardless of undercoating or other protective measures taken by their owners, some Fiat cars rusted rapidly on U.S. roads in the 1970s. That problem and others led wags to proclaim Fiat an acronym for Fix It Again Tony. Partly as a result, sales dropped from a high of 100,511 cars in 1975 to last year's 14,113. Last week Fiat announced that it was pulling out of the American market.

Fiat had only two models in the U.S. anyway, the X1/9 and the flashy Spider 2000, assembled by Coachmakers Bertone and Pininfarina, respectively, but containing many Fiat parts, including the engine. Fiat will no longer sell those cars, although it will maintain its U.S. parts and service network for them as well as for the Strada, which it quietly stopped selling in the U.S. last year.

Fiat officials blamed competition from the Japanese for the demise. Indeed, almost as the company called it quits in the U.S., it was introducing, in Orlando, Fla., of all places, a new small car for the European market where competition from the Japanese is minuscule. Fiat might return to America at another time, says a company vice president, with "the right car at the right moment."