News: Fiat and Mazda get a little closer

 

Mazda  boss Takashi Yamanouchi reckons that Fiat and Mazda will be snuggling up ever closer to one another soon.

Speaking to the press in the aftermath of the Paris Motor Show, Yamanouchi confirmed that the two companies are exploring ever-closer links.

“There’s nothing to announce yet, and nothing that’s certain to happen, but our engineers have been in each other’s plants looking for opportunities," he said. Yamanouchi is due to meet Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne in the next few days and more co-operation programmes may be announced then.

Earlier this year, Fiat and Mazda announced that they would collaborate to build the next-generations of both the MX-5 and Alfa Romeo Spider, with both cars to be made in Mazda's home factory in Hiroshima, based on a common chassis and potentially using the same SkyActiv 1.5-litre petrol engine that Mazda is currently working on.

Mazda certainly needs a new partner, with its relationship with Ford now very much on the back burner, it needs a new platform for the next-generation 2 and 3, and Fiat's versatile Panda and Giulietta chassis would fit the bill nicely there. Likewise, Fiat has always flopped at building larger saloons, but using Mazda's clever and light SkyActiv chassis from the new 6 could potentiallly fix all that. Equally, Mazda's excellent CX-5 crossover could be just the ticket for Alfa Romeo's long-awaited SUV.