Foreign-Car Speedup

Making its first big drive into the U.S.market, Italy's Fiat showed off a line of seven cars in Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria hotel last week. The star: Fiat's tiny bug-shaped Model 600 Standard, which is priced in the U.S. at $1,298. Fiat's other models range from a two-seater 90-m.p.h. sports convertible (U.S. price: $2,498) to a six-seater combination truck-station-wagon ($2,069). The company's U.S. sales goal is 30,000 in 1957 v. about 125 that trickled in last year. Fiat's Manhattan distributor claims to have 5,000 orders already.

Besides Fiat, 16 foreign companies are making a determined bid for the U.S. second-car market this year. The top seller, Germany's Volkswagen, is already racing 23% ahead of last year's rate of 50,000 U.S. registrations. France's Renault so far this year has sold 3,970 cars v. 2,910 in 1956, figures it will reach 20,000 for the year. Britain expects to sell 50,000 to 60,000 cars in the U.S. during 1957. It has solid ground for such optimism. January-February shipments of British cars to the U.S. reached a record 12,037 v. 3,506 in last year's first two months.

Even some U.S. automakers are eying the small-car market with more interest. Sales of Ford's British-made cars in February ran 400% ahead of last year. The company expects this year's registrations to hit 12,000 v. 4,230 in 1956. American Motors so far has sold 2,421 of its 1957 British-made Metropolitans, a 124% jump over the same period of 1956.

Studebaker-Packard Corp. this week took over the exclusive U.S. distributorship of Germany's Mercedes-Benz cars, priced about $5,000 to $13,000. The deal puts the company back into the luxury-car market, gives it, and Curtiss-Wright, permission to import and manufacture Mercedes-Benz diesel engines and fuel-injection systems. With an eye on the sales surge of cheaper foreign cars, S-P also plans to produce a stripped-down version of its two-door "Champion" this year. Price: about $1,850.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.