2023-06-29 21:41:18
Most new cars in Germany are grey. Fiat wants to change that and will be using colorful paintwork from June 2023.
According to the Federal Motor Transport Authority, 2.6 million new cars were registered in Germany in 2022. The most popular color was gray – or at least a shade of gray like silver, which almost a third of shoppers chose. For Fiat boss and Stellantis marketing boss Olivier Francois an absurdity. The color is one of the most popular among car manufacturers and, in a video, taunts the German, French and Japanese brands: Gray is easy to sell, he says, an easy business.
Walking through the colorful houses of the Italian town of Lerici, Francois explains that Italians are regarding happiness, optimism, love, passion and life and that the color gray has nothing to do with it.
No more gray at Fiat
That’s why he grabs what is probably the world’s only gray Fiat 600e ever built and dumps it in a huge bucket of paint that has been set up on the market square in the coastal town of Lerici, while people are sitting and chatting in the cafes in the background. Just before the car is dipped in orange, the Stellantis marketing boss, still sitting in the car, explains: “Da oggi niente piu fiat grigio” – “As of today, there will be no more gray at Fiat.” Then he closes the window and the car sinks with him in the orange liquid.
Fiat sells most cars in black, white and gray
To classify: The KBA reports that Fiat sold over 12,000 cars in gray in 2022 – at least 15.4 percent. There were only more registrations for the black and white vehicles, which were also not too colorful.
So it remains to be seen whether the strategy of Fiat boss Francois is so effective. Because “Operation No Grey”, as Fiat calls its color offensive, applies not only to the Fiat 600 expected around the turn of the year 2023/24, but to all Italian vehicles. So from the little Topolino to the Panda and Tipo to the Van Ulysse and Doblo. All models should no longer be available in gray – at least that’s what the video says. “From June, Fiat will no longer produce gray cars,” it reads. A look at the configurator shows that Francois is serious: Only white, orange, red, blue, green, gold and black are available – and of course they are named with flowery names.
However, since the Ducato belongs to the Fiat Professional commercial vehicle division, the popular gray remains, as do the panel van versions of the Doblo, the Scudo and the Fiorino.
Opinion poll
Very important – I’m happy to pay extra for it.
Not that important – many other things are more important to me.
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Conclusion
At night all cats are grey? It may be, but the prospects are too bleak for Fiat boss Olivier Francois. Therefore, without further ado, he deleted all shades of gray from the color palette of the Fiat models and from now on only wants to offer colorful paints – as well as black and white. How successful he is with it remains to be seen.
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