Fiat News: Fiat North America's Head Wants A 500T Automatic

[William Maley]

By William Maley

Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com

February 10, 2013

The new 500T offers some of the performance of the hotted up 500 Abarth at a somewhat lower price - if you don't mind having the manual transmission only. Those who wanted the automatic with the turbo were just out of luck. However, Fiat North America's head would like to change that.

“The T with an automatic would be great. I want to do it. A lot of people think it’s wrong, like an automatic Abarth.” said Tim Kuniskis, head of Fiat North America. “I need it yesterday. There are so many people [who] want that car.”

There's a reasoning behind Kuniskis statements. The chief competitor to the 500, the Mini Cooper, offers the option of an automatic transmission across the range. Yes, that does include the John Cooper Works model. Offering the 500T with the option of automatic transmission would likely bring more sales to the brand.

Source: Motor Trend

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

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[ocnblu]

sad story

[Drew Dowdell]

and why not? He'll need an automatic to be able to ever sell them in decent numbers here.

[ocnblu]

Shoot, this reminds me... I am forgetting about the 500L Man Edition. I need to add it to my list of candidates.

[G. David Felt]

While I do not like this car, at least someone in the NA department knows that Americans are Auto, not manual. Auto will be needed to sell these cars.