A properly packaged Ram- or Jeep-branded Strada could find receptive U.S. customers. |
DETROIT -- Maybe I'm crazy for even thinking it, but if I could bring
one Fiat-based vehicle to the United States that's not yet here, I
wouldn't hesitate in my choice:
The Fiat Strada.
I've never driven a Strada and never seen one in person, but the photos I've seen of the Brazilian-built runabout intrigue me.
This year, Fiat is shipping the lifestyle pickups to Europe. A
Chrysler spokesman said there are no plans to bring it to United States,
and that's a shame.
Because I think -- admittedly with little more than a hunch to back
me up -- that a properly packaged Ram- or Jeep-branded Strada would find
receptive U.S. customers.
After years of declining sales, the small-truck segment once
dominated by the Ford Ranger, Toyota Tacoma, Chevy S10, and Dodge Dakota
now looks like an episode of Survivor.
The Tacoma -- the last truck in the lonely segment not going extinct
in the United States -- is holding its own, but with 110,705 sales in
2011, isn't setting the world on fire. There are of course still a few
Rangers, Dakotas, GMC Canyons and S10 successor Chevy Colorados driving
off dealer lots, but not many.
Yet the Strada isn't really like those other small trucks. It's more
like the now-departed Subaru Baja or even a throwback to the Chevy El
Camino and its counterpart, the long-gone Ford Ranchero.
For owners, all vehicles are compromises: Many people who drive
pickups only haul air most of the time, but they buy their pickups for
those times when they need to fill the bed with 2,000 pounds of mulch.
And how many minivans are on the road with just a driver inside keeping
company with five or six empty seats? Those vehicles are marketed for
the times they're needed without mentioning all the times that they're
not.
The Strada, on the other hand, embraces the compromise. Instead of
doing one thing great -- say, hauling a ton of mulch -- and a bunch of
things inefficiently, it's designed to do several things good enough.
That's what makes it appealing.
The front-wheel-drive Strada is just over 14 feet long, with beds
ranging from 66 inches to just 42 inches long, depending on the cab
configuration. A modified suspension gives the little runabout a towing
capacity of about 1,500 pounds.
As built today, the Strada has a small 100-hp engine, but gets a
turbodiesel in Europe that is expected to flirt with 45 mpg, according
to pickuptrucks.com.
If Chrysler were to drop its 160-hp turbocharged 1.4-liter in there
and maybe a little Jeep powertrain magic, it would make the Strada a
very interesting little vehicle in a segment where it would stand almost
alone.
After all, Chrysler told us in November 2009 that it would bring a
"lifestyle truck" to North America before 2014, and I can't think of a
better vehicle to fit that bill than a local version of the Strada.
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