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Ram pickups Alfa Romeo sport cars bright spots for FCA US in 2017
<p><strong>Ram pickups, Alfa Romeo sport cars bright spots for FCA US in 2017.</strong></p>

Alfa Romeo, Ram Carry FCA in 2017

FCA US sales reflect the continuing impact of the automaker&rsquo;s shift away from cars and fleet business to a portfolio heavy in trucks and utility vehicles sold at retail. Alfa Romeo and Ram are the only brands showing annual sales growth.

FCA US continued to shed fleet sales and overall volume in 2017 with daily light-vehicle sales declining 7.2% in December from like-2016, ending the year off 8.4% in total volume.

The Italian-American automaker posted 170,241 deliveries for the month, bringing its total for the year to 2,042,173, down from 2,228,578 in 2016.

On a daily-sales basis, Chrysler gained 6.5% compared with December 2016, while Alfa Romeo deliveries rose to 2,034 from just 52 sales year-ago. Fiat suffered the sharpest decline in December, off 30.7%, followed by Dodge (-20.3%), Jeep (-8.6%) and Ram (-2.9%). December had 26 selling days, one less than year-ago.

Ram and Alfa Romeo showed gains in total volume for the year, with Ram posting a 1.8% increase on 539,587 deliveries while Alfa Romeo saw sales climb from 516 units in 2016 to more than 12,000 in 2017. Fiat (-19.1%) and Chrysler (-18.7%) brands suffered the largest decline in annual volume, while Jeep was off 10.6%.

Overall, FCA light-truck deliveries dipped 5.9% for the year to 1.78 million while car sales plummeted 22.2% to 261,400 units as FCA continued to whittle away at fleet deliveries, an effort begun in 2016. The automaker pared fleet sales another 42% year-over-year in December, mostly through a 75% reduction in Jeep-brand fleet sales. The company reported fleet sales represented just 12% of its total December sales.

The Chrysler brand’s strong December came from increases in 300 sedan sales, up 65.9%, and the Pacifica minivan, up 12.5%. Pacifica deliveries nearly doubled in 2017 to 118,274. Dodge’s decline continued with soft sales across all nameplates except the soon-to-be-gone Caravan minivan.

Jeep’s dip in daily sales of Renegade (-35%) and Wrangler (-9.5%) was offset by gains by Cherokee (+22.7%), Compass (+14.1%) and Grand Cherokee (+5.5%). An all-new Wrangler and refreshed Cherokee should bolster the Jeep showroom this year.

For the Ram brand, deliveries of the ProMaster City small van, up 24.7% in December, cushioned a 25.8% collapse in ProMaster large-van sales and a 1.3% drop in Ram pickup deliveries. An all-new Ram arrives in the first quarter.

Fiat’s 500L (+13%) and the 124 Spider roadster (+19.2%) carried Fiat sales last month as the brand’s small 500 fell 50.9% and the 500X dropped 17.1%. Alfa Romeo continued to see small but incremental sales growth against virtually no volume year-ago.

[email protected] @bobgritzinger

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