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<A 670-HP Lancia Delta Integrale EV Will Tackle World Rallycross in 2022 With the FIA's WRX series going electric, now's the time to revive a true classic. Ahh, rallycross going electric. It feels like someone invents a new version of it every week, probably because rallycross sort of has the ideal format for cars with limited range. The races are just 6-9 minutes long, but it's also tough actually making electric cars you can rattle the absolute hell out of around a jump track while keeping the safety standards somewhere north of acceptable. And then there are the costs. The FIA World Rallycross championship is, after years of skirting the issue, finally taking the plunge next season. One of the entrants, French outfit GCK Motorsport, is bringing things back to the old school by using the 500-kilowatt, dual-motor electric powertrain and battery from Kreisel (the people who are also bringing you insane hydrofoil racing) and fitting it to a Lancia Delta Integrale. That car's a volatile legend of rallycross' past, as well as a six-time World Rally Championship title winner. GCK Although there's obviously gonna have to be a fair amount of screwing around with it, this really will have a Delta Integrale chassis, somewhere in its base. The Integrale wasn't the Group B Lancia–that was the completely haphazard Delta S4, a beast with, as you'd expect in rally, more horsepower than sense that could reportedly pull up to 800 hp in a final race. Instead, the Integrale was a Group A competitor that still won over everyone's hearts. But rallying and Lancia Deltas go together like me and standing by the side of the course getting a face full of gravel, so this is more than a welcome development in any case. GCK already made a restomod version of the Lancia Delta Integrale that looks mighty lovely zooming around a smooth circuit because it's a car that's shaped like the most satisfying box and it's got the handling of a modern EV. That's all nice and good and I definitely wouldn't be angry if someone offered to let me (or preferably Stef) hoon one round the Nordschleife. But it's not the roaring, angry, roughness of whatever makes people want to snout rallycross cars around dirt tracks like 670-horsepower truffle hunters. LANCIA The WRX series is very keen to make some, frankly, fairly wild claims about the cars accelerating faster than F1 (yes, for a short period and if the F1 car doesn't have ERS). To be honest, when you're as obscure as rallycross has ended up these days, you can pretty much say absolutely anything and it'll either please all 15 incredibly passionate Estonians following the championship or everyone will just ignore it, anyway. For sure, at least, WRX has a decent grid put together for next year with 14 entrants to the 2022 title. And y'know, 671 horsepower and 880 newton-meters of torque in cars this size is going to be rude and fun as hell whatever you do with it. It took less than that to impress Ken Block, after all. At the very least, this is a more dignified progression of the Delta into the future than what Lancia actually did with it, which was to take on a very 2021 process way back in 2009 and turn what used to be the symbol of manic, gutsy handling into a completely vile crossover it hurts to look at. Please don't bring this one back as electric, Stellantis—you're on watch. LANCIA>

4th largest automotive group in the making... Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot reach deal to merge DETROIT – From Daimler-Chrysler to Fiat Chrysler, the former American automaker Chrysler Corp. has gallivanted around the world to find partners to assist in its growth or help keep it afloat. It now has its sights set on Peugeot maker PSA Group. Both the French carmaker and Fiat Chrysler on Wednesday confirmed they are in talks to create the world’s fourth-largest automaker with a roughly $50 billion valuation. The PSA board approved the merger and the Fiat Chrysler board is set to meet Wednesday, a person familiar with the deal told CNBC. Executives have briefed regulators in the U.S. and France, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources. Peugeot CEO Carlos Tavares is expected to lead the combined automaker as its CEO, while John Elkann, Fiat Chrysler chairman and heir of the Agnelli family dynasty that founded Fiat, would continue his role with the combined company, the WSJ reported. The deal gives Peugeot six board seats and Fiat Chrysler five, according to the WSJ. “We will not comment beyond the press release issued this morning,” PSA Spokesman Pierre-Olivier Salmon said in an email, citing a press release issued earlier in the day that confirmed the two companies were holding “ongoing discussions aiming at creating one of the world’s leading automotive groups.” Fiat Chrysler spokesman Niel Golightly said he had “nothing to add at this time.” Reports of the talks, including a potential “all-share merger of equals,” as the Wall Street Journal first reported, sent shares of Fiat Chrysler surging as much as 8% on Tuesday. The stock rose by less than 2% in midday trading Wednesday. The confirmation of the talks comes about five months after Fiat Chrysler ended merger discussions with PSA’s French rival, Renault. Fiat Chrysler, the world’s seventh-largest automaker, has been on a quest for a tie-up to grow scale and consolidate costs for several years. ‘Litany of obstacles’ Even if the deal wins approval from both boards, it faces a lot of obstacles. Challenges include consolidation, clashing corporate cultures and government and regulatory approval, among other issues. Talks of a potential tie-up between Fiat Chrysler and Renault ended earlier this year largely due to the French government, which owns a roughly 12.2% stake in Renault. The French government currently owns a 13.7% stake in PSA. Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst John Murphy cited the French government’s ownership as one of a “litany of obstacles” facing such a deal. Murphy said similar to Fiat Chrysler’s potential tie-up with Renault, the “industrial logic” is “unclear unless there is massive headcount reduction.” Such a deal, according to Murphy, also could alienate U.S. buyers, lowering the potential benefit of the two automakers combining. Even if the merger is approved by shareholders and regulators, “there is a material risk American consumers may shift to Ford and GM products due to FCA possibly no longer being perceived as an ‘American’ identity, not to mention the potential political implications of this potential deal.” Bernstein analyst Max Warburton said a merger between Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot “has more logic” than one with Renault. He specifically cites the potential for Tavares to create “long-term value.” “We ultimately think a deal could be made to work — this would be as much about raising performance as it would be about synergies,” he wrote in a Tuesday note to investors. However, Warburton noted a deal between the two does little to increase business in China, the world’s largest auto market, and the timing is “sub-optimal” given FCA’s earnings are at all-time high. Rewards Analysts see the merger as a quick way for Peugeot to re-enter the U.S. market after a decades-long hiatus, while continuing to grow its European operations following the company’s acquisition of GM’s European business in 2017. “This news is not unexpected, given that both companies have been actively exploring tie-ups with others to yield cost savings and other synergistic benefits,” said David Leggett, automotive editor at data analytics firm GlobalData. For Fiat Chrysler, it would finally cement former CEO Sergio Marchionne’s vision of creating a global automaker with the resources to successfully compete in the ever-changing auto industry. In 2015, Marchionne, who unexpectedly died in July 2018, called for industry consolidation in a presentation called “Confessions of a Capital Junkie.” Consolidation would save capital that was being wasted by automakers developing redundant technologies, he said. “These were not hallucinations of somebody looking to grandstand in the industry,” Marchionne said at the time. “We have spent a lot of time trying to understand what makes this machine tick. And the machine can tick a lot better if certain things happened.” Marchionne believed only a handful of the world’s largest automakers would survive and have the capital to compete as automakers push for autonomous and all-electric vehicles. The deal with PSA would give Fiat Chrysler access to PSA’s newer vehicle platforms in Europe as well as emerging technologies. Marchionne’s methodical combination of Fiat and Chrysler a decade ago is considered one of the more successful tie-ups for the auto industry in the recent years. Chrysler’s previous “merger of equals” with German automaker Daimler-Benz in 1998 was a culture clash and failure that led to a divorce less than a decade later, followed by Chrysler spiraling into bankruptcy in 2009.

Fiat Chrysler Automobile has chosen transmission manufacturer ZF as its supplier for its upcoming rear- and all-wheel drive vehicles with front-longitudinal engine configuration. “We are pleased being nominated as global transmission supplier by FCA. This is our second major order for the new 8HP and it confirms our strategy to focus on plug-in hybrids as an every-day solution and to develop attractive products in these areas,” ZF Chief Executive Wolf-Henning Scheider said. The new automatic gearbox is equipped with an integrated electric drive and can be used in plug-in hybrid vehicles that FCA plans to produce. While the company has not declared which of its models will get the transmission, it is expected to find its way into some of the company’s bigger cars. To be built at ZF's factory in Germany, production of the new gearbox is scheduled to start in 2022 and will also be manufactured in other locations such as the United States and China at a later date. According to ZF, FCA's deal with them is the second largest order in its history while its largest single order happened with BMW just three months before this.

It is rumored that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Renault have resumed talks to revive its potential merger. Its merger plan failed a couple of weeks ago and FCA blamed the French government for it. According to Reuters, Nissan wants Renault to significantly reduce its 43.4% stake in return for its support of a $48billion merger between FCA and Renault. In the article, FCA chairman John Elkann and Renault chairman Jean-Dominique Senard have been holding talks about continuing the negotiation, but both companies are refusing to comment on the reports officially. A senior advisor from FCA, Toby Myerson was also spotted at the Nissan headquarters in Japan for discussions with top management and would have likely include Nissan Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa. Also in the article, it explained that the Nissan head has long believed that its alliance with Renault needed “re-balancing”. This is because Nissan is much larger than Renault but it only holds a 15% stake in the French automaker and no voting rights, while Renault owns 43.4% of Nissan. The French government has since responded, willing to reduce its 15% stake in Renault in an effort to see the merger come to fruition, but only if that would benefit both FCA and the Alliance in general.

The French government has been blamed for the failure of Renault and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles's proposed merger. But it disagrees. It only took 10 days for the merger to fail as Reuters reported that the French government, which has a 15% stake in Renault, took things overboard by demanding a series of guarantees and concessions that were deemed excessive by FCA. A French government official then called FCA's Chairman John Elkann to persuade him to reconsider the offer but was rejected still. According to French finance minister Bruno Le Maire, the government engaged in the negotiations constructively but they weren’t ready to commit without the consensuses of Renault’s partner, Nissan. Meanwhile, Nissan's said that it would be neutral on the merger proposal. The article went on to say that the people in FCA was actually fine with Nissan's stance and put the blame on the French government for the collapse of the deal.