Chrysler Ousts Head of Fiat 500 Program

Maybe Jennifer Lopez will be next to get the axe?  Laura Soave, who headed up the return of Fiat to U.S. shores since March 2010,  ”has left the company and will pursue other interests,” as Chrysler put it today.

JenLo, you may recall, has become the celebrity face of the Fiat 500, doing commercials and personal appearances for the minuscule car but suffered an embarrassing moment at the Los Angeles Auto Show when she was unable to open the door of one of the cars.

It seems the handle was stuck for unknown reasons.  

As far as we know, Ms. Soave was unable to find a similar scapegoat for the dismal sales performance of the 500.  Or maybe she is the scapegoat?

Sergio Marchionne, Chrysler CEO and chairman, had confidently predicted the company would sell 50,000 of the cars annually but fewer than 16,000 had been sold as of the end of October.

The current party line is that sales are slow because it has taken longer than expected to get dealerships open.  Chrysler says it now has 130 dealerships in the U.S. but admits that in October, 29 of them did not sell a single car, FiatOwner.org reported.

Chrysler Group named Timothy Kuniskis, 44, to replace Soave.

“Tim brings broad expertise and leadership in dealer operations and marketing where he has been already working with the team to shape the direction of the Fiat Brand,” Marchionne said.

Customer grousing

One advantage of not selling many cars, of course, is that you don't get many complaints that way. But the early returns are starting to come in anyway, like one we recently received from Dave of Manitoba.

"Upon purchasing the car I was told it was manufactured in Europe [but] it is in fact built in Mexico and has very poor build quality, so far both front seats have broken, trim falls off, some new trim already been replaced once has come off again," Dave said, but added that fuel economy is his major concern.

"The car is sold as being able to do 55 mpg (Canadian) on the hwy ... [but] to date which is 4 months and 18,000km we have not got above 43 mpg. [They] have no answers as to why the fuel ecomony is so bad, and are not prepared to find out why," he said.