Fiat and BMW to team up
July 9, 2008 by Alborz Fallah
The allies of the old world are once again reuniting, this time, for something a little more peaceful. Fiat and BMW today announced that they are considering plans to cooperate on joint platform and component development.
Sources in the know have said the two company’s will develop a joint platform which will power the next-generation Fiat Grande Punto, BMW’s third-generation Mini and the next-generation Alfa Romeo MiTo.
Both automakers have agreed to keep all negotiations secret, but we know that the two are also considering jointly building petrol and diesel engines as part of the alliance.
”We are currently examining with Fiat group possibilities for the joint use of components and systems in Mini and Alfa Romeo vehicles.” BMW brand development head Friedrich Eichiner said
The German and Italian giants are set to gain enormously from the deal, with BMW stating that its venture with Fiat will go a long way in minimising costs, which is part of its Number One strategy.
Even so, neither party will make the partnership official until talks are finalised by the end of the year.
Fiat already has partnerships with PSA/Peugeot-Citroen, Suzuki and Tata while BMW works with PSA on engine production whilst also powering China’s Brilliance brand.
Print it: 
*****PRIMO!*****
Lucky BMW, they will learn how to make a decent small car and FIAT a big one!
More and more of this will happen in the future, hope BMW dont steal any F1 secrets from FIAT/FERRARI like McLaren/Benz did!
Cheers
F-0
This seems like an unlikely match. Fiat sells cars on emotion, rather than engineering excellence, whilst on the other hand BMW are clinical in their engineering approach, and produce ‘less emotional cars’. I see fiat as the big winner in this partnership.
Partnerships like these are vital in the auto world, to ensure the competitiveness, and even long term survival of comanies.
So………..if Maserati and Fiat are toghether and when Fiat and BMW join that means BMW can use items from Maserati too?
All that passion mated with kick ar*e engineering.
I can only see good things coming from this.
Are they going to make well built, good looking, passionate cars OR ugly cars that fall apart??? LOL
Spaggetti with strogganoff, Fantastico/Fantastisch
Ferrari, Maserati, Fiat, BMW, and Rolls-Royce!!!
All in one company.
It’s fantastic
Finally, a tractor that will work.