By George Guimarães | Translated by Jorge Meditsch
Even leading Brazil’s light commercial vehicle market with a 50% share, Fiat does not intend to open hand of its dominance or even lose a few points. Exactly when General Motors was presenting the New Chevrolet Montana, Fiat Toro’s direct competitor, this Thursday, 12/1, the Italian brand announced it would have a new pickup in Brazil.
It will be the brand’s third in the country. The compact Strada and the medium-sized Toro lead their segments. The first one was also the internal market’s best-selling vehicle in 2021, and it will be repeated in 2022. From January through November, it had more than 103 thousand units licensed.
“Sales of the new model of the pickup segment D will start in the second half of 2023”, said Stellantis, explaining that this segment is responsible for 40% of pickup sales in South America. The vehicle is currently in final development at Stellantis’s Engineering Technical Centers at the Automotive Pole in Betim, MG.
The picture released clearly shows that it’s a yet unprecedented version of the Peugeot Landtrek, a model launched before the creation of Stellantis, aggregating 14 original PCA and FCA brands, such as Peugeot, Citroën, Fiat, Jeep and RAM, all present in Brazil.
The Landtreck began to be sold in Latin America at the end of 2020. At the time, Peugeot ambitioned to dispute at least a dozen markets in the region, among them Brazil, after 2022. Nonetheless, since then, Stellantis decided to cool down the matter.
In Mexico, the pickup began to be sold with 4×4 drive and a 1.9l 150 cv turbodiesel engine with a 6-speed manual transmission or a 2.4l 210 cv gasoline engine with either manual or automatic 6-speed transmission.
If the same technical specifications are kept, the “Fiat Landtrek” will have a 1.2-ton cargo capacity and will compete against the Chevrolet S-10, Toyota Hilux, Volkswagen Amarok, Nissan Frontier, Ford Ranger and Mitsubishi L200.
To use one of its other brands’ logotypes in an already-existent product is not a novelty for Stellantis. The strategy for the future Fiat pickup was already adopted with the Fiat Fiorino, now also a “Peugeot product”, and the cargo vans Peugeot Expert and Citroën Jumpy, also made in Uruguay, commercialized as Fiat Scudo.
The doubt is if Peugeot will have a chance to have its own pickup in the Brazilian market, not only Fiat.
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