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MultiAir Propels Fiat Past Chrysler Stake Signpost
Equipped with a 1.4L MultiAir Tubro, a Dodge Dart prototype achieved the required 40-mpg fuel-economy rating to trigger Fiat’s latest Chrysler share grab.
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Dodge Dart will be unveiled at Detroit auto show.
The car was a Dodge Dart, but the engine that drove it and Chrysler closer to Italy-based partner Fiat was all Fiat.
Chrysler announces that Fiat now controls 58.5% of the Detroit auto maker, having upped its stake by 5%. The increase was triggered automatically after Chrysler advises the U.S. Treasury Dept. in a letter that it has “irrevocably committed” to domestic series production of a vehicle featuring an unadjusted combined fuel-economy rating of at least 40 mpg (5.9 L.100 km).
But the production guarantee was contingent on first achieving the fuel-economy rating. So Chrysler equipped a prototype Dart with the Fiat-designed 1.4L MultiAir Turbo I-4, the smallest of three engines destined for the all-new car, the auto maker tells WardsAuto.
The test was conducted late last month, Chrysler says in a statement.
The other two engine choices for Dart buyers emenate from Chrysler’s Tigershark program, which CEO Sergio Marchionne publicly acknowledged for the first time to WardsAuto in 2010.
Both are derivatives of Chrysler’s 4-cyl. World Engine that debuted in the ’07 Dodge Caliber. One engine is a 2.0L 16-valve I-4 or a 2.4L 16-valve I-4 which, like the 1.4L Turbo, features Fiat’s patented MultiAir valve-actuation technology.
Chrysler does not disclose fuel-economy ratings for Tigershark-powered Darts. The car, which replaces the Caliber and is set to launch this spring at the auto maker’s assembly plant in Belvidere, IL, will be unveiled at next week’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
The contingencies that most recently increased Fiat’s stake in Chrysler are contained in a landmark 2009 operating agreement that enabled the Italian auto maker, with financial aid from U.S. and Canadian governments, to obtain management control of Chrysler, thereby rescuing it from bankruptcy.
Other provisions that hiked Fiat’s ownership in the Detroit auto maker called for:
Generation of $1.5 billion in cumulative revenue from markets outside North America.
The establishment of new vehicle-distribution agreements in Brazil and Europe.
An agreement to compensate Chrysler for use of its technology by Fiat or its overseas affiliates.
Government authorization to produce 4-cyl. Fiat engines at Chrysler’s engine plant in Dundee, MI, and a company commitment to do so.
Any additional increase in Fiat’s stake in Chrysler must involve the auto maker’s lone remaining shareholder, the United Auto Workers’ Voluntary Employee Benefit Assn. Its 41.5% stake in Chrysler was awarded in recognition of UAW concessions that also enabled the auto maker to emerge from bankruptcy.
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