Stellantis Keeping Peugeot Out Of USA - Company To Focus On High Profit RAM, Chrysler And Project Alfa

Editor's Note: Back in the early 1960's Peugeot was a big deal imported car brand among us cool car guy's who tried hard to emulate the coolest Peugeot guy of all - Colombo. This was a time before the Japanese and Germans put a full court press on the our domestic car business, Great Britain sent over some sports cars from Jaguar, MG, Austin, Borgward, Messerschmidt, Mercedes-Benz, Triumph and the choice of "foreign" cars was limited, the big car carrying ships unloaded thousands of white Toyota's and white Datsun's each day, there were dealer's selling Volvo's, VW Beetles, Porsche, Renault, Saab, English Ford, Audi, BMW, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Fiat. Peugeot was in the mix...in fact my first friend ever Jack Pessah and his wife Judy led the import vanguard with a BRG Peugeot 403 4 Door Sedan, and it was tres cool...I especially remember that the Michelin tires on his car were still good at 70,000 miles, at a time when tires on American cars had to be replaced at around 20,000 Miles. The MPG was irrelevant as gasoline sold for less than 25 cents a gallon which included checking the oil, tire pressure, cleaning the windows and a bonus of a free souvenir glass from the world fair, C'est la vie.

Paris March 11, 2921; Reuters reported that Stellantis NV has scrapped a plan to launch the Peugeot brand in the United States and will focus instead on the RAM pickup trucks, high-margin Jeeps and Fiat Chrysler's (FCA) other brands - Dodge, Chrysler and Alfa Romeo - in the world's second-largest auto market, it said on Tuesday.

Stellantis, the world's fourth-largest carmaker, was created by merger of FCA and Peugeot maker PSA in January. It was widely expected by analysts and industry experts that PSA's plans to launch the brand in the U.S. market would be abandoned by Stellantis given the strength of FCA's most profitable models there.

(Reporting for Reuters by Gilles Guillaume, writing by Nick Carey, editing by Louise Heavens)