Fiat to End Production of Panda Classic in Poland

VIENNA – Production of the previous-generation Fiat Panda, called the Panda Classic, will come to a halt at Fiat’s Tychy, Poland, plant at the end of the year.

It is unclear whether the move will have an impact on jobs at the facility, which employs 4,625 people.

The decision to phase out the Panda Classic has met with criticism in the Polish media, because there is no new model to replace the car in the plant’s portfolio. Critics contend Fiat is ending output of the Panda Classic in order to sell more new-generation Pandas made at one if its struggling plants in Italy.

Fiat says the Panda Classic is being phased out because new European regulations taking effect in early 2013 would force the auto maker to make costly changes to the vehicle.

Since taking up production of the Panda in 2003, the plant has churned out some 2.15 million units through September, including more than 2 million for export.

Fiat’s image problems in Poland started in 2010 with the decision to produce the next-generation Panda at its Giambattista Vico plant in Pomigliano d'Arco, Italy, and not in Poland, a move seen resulting from Italian political pressure.

Fiat put a new-generation Lancia Ypsilon into production at Tychy in spring 2011, but planned volumes are much lower than those for the Panda.

In early 2012, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne promised to have a new model for Poland by midyear.

“I will have a new car for the factory in Tychy in the next six months,” Marchionne told the Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita in an interview at the Detroit auto show in January. “No one can say the capacity of the Tychy factory won't be fully utilized.”

Now Fiat’s Polish car plant is losing the Panda Classic and no replacement has been announced.

“Tychy is a plant that has always responded whenever I’ve asked,” Marchionne told reporters at the Paris auto show in late September. “So I feel an exceptional obligation to the people to find a solution. Allow us the time to try and figure out the right answer. It’s not because of them, it’s because the market isn’t there.”

The Tychy facility is Fiat’s largest car plant in Europe. It has higher productivity and better quality ratings than Fiat’s facility in Italy.

“In Poland, a single plant produces approximately the same number of cars (as the five plants in Italy) with less than one-third of the people,” Marchionne said in December 2009 at a meeting with representatives of the Italian government and trade unions in Rome.

As a result of the economic crisis in parts of Europe, the plant was forced to reduce output this year significantly.

Last year, Fiat Auto Poland built 467,760 cars, down 12.3 % from 2010. The factory set its output record in 2009, when it manufactured 605,797 cars.

Tychy makes the Panda Classic, Fiat 500 (including its sporty Abarth-badged version), Lancia Ypsilon and Fiat 500-based Ford Ka.

– with David E. Zoia