Stellantis Archives

LOOKING BACK: The Alfa Romeo Alfasud

Unveiled in November 1971 at the Turin Motor Show, the Alfasud was a significant new model by Alfa Romeo. Although the Volkswagen Golf, which arrived a few years later, would continue to exist to this day, the Alfasud was essentially a single generation that never had a successor of the same name.

It was nevertheless a commercial success in its time, with over a million units sold worldwide between 1971 and 1989. Besides Italy, the Alfasud was also assembled in South Africa, Malta and also Malaysia.

Local assembly in Malaysia (at the Swedish Motor Assembly plant in Shah Alam) was due to the enthusiasm of City Motors, then the importer and distributor of the brand, particularly Datuk Dr. Foo Wan Kien.

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Bringing Back Emotional Engine Roar In The EV Age

Motoring enthusiasts often talk about driving as an emotional thing and while there are various kinds of emotions – stress, fear, anger – it is often the emotion of pleasure that is publicised. ‘Driving’ pleasure is often mentioned as what can be experienced from a new car and advertisements play it up in different ways.

Going together with driving pleasure for sportscars is also the sound of the engine and exhaust – a growl or a roar or even a crackle – and it is what gets the adrenaline flowing faster. The ultimate sound comes from racing cars which, not being restricted by regulations for vehicles used on public roads, are typically louder.

With electrically-powered cars, there is no combustion engine, no exhaust pipe – and therefore no sound. Environmentalists are happy with the prospect of roads becoming quieter in future as more electric vehicles (EVs) travel on them. But for those who have always loved driving and the pleasure it gives, the absence of engine and exhaust sound is a huge loss. The silence, as the saying goes, is ‘deafening’.

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Malaysia Is First Market in Asia-Pacific To Sell Peugeot Landtrek Pick-Up Truck

While pick-up trucks are popular in many markets, they have never appealed to consumers in the European markets. Their size has been one reason, given the narrow roads and tight parking spaces in many cities. For farm use, tractors would be preferred and if it comes to carrying goods, they have small vans that are more practical.

For this reason, Peugeot has never really given much attention to making pick-up trucks although it did produce one as far back as 1938. There were also a few other models over the years and one based on the 504 was quite popular – in Africa. In fact, to satisfy demand by its overseas distributors (mainly in Africa), it has provided ‘badge-engineered’ pick-up trucks, one of them being based on a model made by Dongfeng.

More recently, the French carmaker co-developed a truck with Changan, another Chinese manufacturer. Changan calls its version the Kaicene F70 while Peugeot calls it the Landtrek, and it is sold in some markets in South America and Africa. It is also now available in Malaysia, which is the first market in the Asia-Pacific region to well the Landtrek.

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Stellantis Reveals New HYBRID Powertrain To Be Used in Peugeot Models

‘Electrification’ is a term that the auto industry has been using a lot of in recent years. Basically, it is a transition that will see internal combustion engines being replaced by electric motors. That transition began a few years ago with commitments by some to sell only ‘electrified’ vehicles by the end of this decade.

However, the transition will not see the switch to only electric motors occurring so fast. In the coming years, there will also be another partial electrification with hybrid powertrains which still use a combustion engine but with an electric motor also helping. The technology for this has been in mass production models since the late 1990s when Toyota introduced the Prius and is less costly than fully electric powertrains at this time.

Models with hybrid powertrains can therefore be offered at lower prices, making them more widely adopted and achieving at least partial reductions in CO₂ emissions. To wait for everyone to use a fully electric car will take time as economic circumstances in many regions may not make it possible for people to buy electric cars.

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Ram’s Concept EV Truck Proposes A 3-Row Cabin!

Ram is unlikely to be known to Malaysians as it is a brand presently mainly in North America. It used to be the name of a truck range in Dodge but got spun off in 2010 to become a brand on its own within the Fiat Chrysler Group. With the merger of Fiat Chrysler and the PSA Group in 2021, Ram became part of the enlarged Stellantis group.

Ram has always been a truck specialist and when it was a division in Chrysler, it focussed on delivering ‘real trucks’ and not the ‘lifestyle’ machines that have become common in recent times. It therefore has a solid niche in the market where capable trucks are sought for serious work.

At CES 2023 recently, Ram gave a preview of what it’s looking at further down the road in the age of electrification. It presented its vision in 3-dimensional form as the Ram 1500 Revolution Battery-electric Vehicle (BEV) Concept which also gives an idea of its design direction.

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Malaysia To Be First Asia-Pacific Market To Launch Peugeot Landtrek Pick-Up Truck

Bermaz Auto Alliance Sdn Bhd (BAASB) will soon be adding another model to its Peugeot range and this one will surprise many people: it’s a pick-up truck. Although the French carmaker has been making motor vehicles for over 100 years, pick-up trucks have never featured strongly in its range of products, even though the vehicles have been around almost as long as the passenger car.

This will be the first market in the Asia Pacific region to have the Peugeot truck, which has the name of Landtrek. However, the truck already exists in Asia – except that it is not sold as a Peugeot product but as the Kaicene F70 from Changan Automobile which jointly developed the model with Peugeot.

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Peugeot Inception Concept Begins New Era Of Electrification For The Brand

Concept cars used to be fanciful models created by carmakers to dazzle visitors at motorshows. They had amazing technologies and features but a lot was also for show as it was either to complex or too expensive to put into production models. These days though, concept cars serve to preview the next generation of models and much of the technology shown is already under development.

With the Inception Concept presented by Peugeot at CES 2023 (the Consumer Electronics Show), the French carmaker is giving a preview of what its future models in the electric era will be like, and what advanced features they will have.

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Fiat Opens World’s First Metaverse-Powered Store

Shopping online is commonplace these days and during the lockdown periods of the past two years, many companies stepped up their online business activities as their physical retail outlets were forced to close. While there was already a trend starting towards increased online stores selling by car companies, the pandemic accelerated things in order for brands to remain accessible to customers.

Today, virtually every brand has an online showroom which mainly provides information on the latest models and if a customer is ready to make a purchase, the process can be started online as well. However, in some countries, physical presence is still required to complete the transaction as documents need to be officially signed.

Now Fiat has come out with what it says is the world’s first metaverse-powered store, taking the digital experience to a more advanced level. Starting off in Italy, the Fiat Metaverse Store provides a more sophisticated ‘shopping experience’ and there’s a real FIAT expert – called a FIAT Product Genius – on hand to answer questions.

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Lancia Revival With New Design Language ‘To Last The Next 100 Years’

Lancia is one of those old Italian car companies that had its glory days many decades ago and then faded into obscurity, though not vanishing totally. After being independent in its first 56 years, it became part of the Fiat group in 1969. As the Fiat group is now part of Stellantis, Lancia has become a division which has continued to sell its cars but only in the Italian market.

However, Stellantis sees Lancia as a brand that can be revived and brought to greater heights. It is therefore embarking on a new era with a new design vision. This design vision – Lancia Pu+Ra Design – is previewed in the Pu+Ra Zero, a 3-dimensional ‘manifesto’ that will guide the designers of the 3 new Lancia models to be launched between 2024 and 2028.

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Abarth Starts Electrification Journey With New 500e

Abarth, part of the Stellantis Group, was originally the performance brand of Fiat, which had acquired the company in 1971. From then on, the company (which was established in 1949) adapted Fiat models to be higher performance variants which were sold under its own brand name. An exception was the 124 Spider produced between 2015 and 2019.which was adapted from the 4^th generation Mazda MX-5.

Like AMG and M GmbH, the performance brands of Mercedes-Benz and BMW, Abarth has also to start its electrification journey as the auto industry as a whole has committed towards carbon neutrality over the next few decades. Even companies like Ferrari and Lamborghini have been forced to start switching to zero emissions powertrains whether they like to or not.

With the new 500e, Abarth offers its first battery electric vehicle (BEV) which is adapted from the Fiat 500e which went on sale in early 2020. However, being a performance brand, Abarth has not just taken the Fiat model and out on its badge, which is characterized by a scorpion. Just as Porsche and BMW M made sure that their electric models have high performance worthy of their badges, Abarth has also given its version an extra measure of performance.

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Stellantis

LOOKING BACK: The Alfa Romeo Alfasud

Bringing Back Emotional Engine Roar In The EV Age

Malaysia Is First Market in Asia-Pacific To Sell Peugeot Landtrek Pick-Up Truck

Stellantis Reveals New HYBRID Powertrain To Be Used in Peugeot Models

Ram’s Concept EV Truck Proposes A 3-Row Cabin!

Malaysia To Be First Asia-Pacific Market To Launch Peugeot Landtrek Pick-Up Truck

Peugeot Inception Concept Begins New Era Of Electrification For The Brand

Fiat Opens World’s First Metaverse-Powered Store

Lancia Revival With New Design Language ‘To Last The Next 100 Years’

Abarth Starts Electrification Journey With New 500e

LOOKING BACK: The Alfa Romeo Alfasud

Bringing Back Emotional Engine Roar In The EV Age

Malaysia Is First Market in Asia-Pacific To Sell Peugeot Landtrek Pick-Up Truck

Stellantis Reveals New HYBRID Powertrain To Be Used in Peugeot Models

Ram’s Concept EV Truck Proposes A 3-Row Cabin!

Malaysia To Be First Asia-Pacific Market To Launch Peugeot Landtrek Pick-Up Truck

Peugeot Inception Concept Begins New Era Of Electrification For The Brand

Fiat Opens World’s First Metaverse-Powered Store

Lancia Revival With New Design Language ‘To Last The Next 100 Years’

Abarth Starts Electrification Journey With New 500e

Archive

Lancia’s Electrifying Revival: The 2024 Ypsilon Previewed

BMW Group Expands Manufacturing Footprint in Thailand with Battery Assembly Facility

Ford Ranger Getaways Returns With More Thrills and Adventures!

smart Malaysia Commences Deliveries of smart #1 Pro

Chery Malaysia Launches the Omoda E5 EV – RM146,800

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