Update, 5/31/20: As of this writing, the Fiat 124 Spider remains on sale in the United States. Strangely, the 2020 model year vehicle is hidden on the Fiat USA website, which still defaults to showing the 2019 models. Still, things don’t bode well for the car; FCA sold just 388 new 124 Spiders in the first three months of 2020, a 24 percent drop from last year’s already-less-than-impressive 513 units moved in the same time frame. In contrast, Ram sold 128,805 pickup trucks between January 1 and March 31…which means they sold three times as many Rams every day as Fiat sold Spiders in the entire quarter.
Update, 12/5/19: A trio of Italian news sources are now claiming that Fiat will soon be ending production of the 124 Spider. As Car and Driver pointed out, the model has already been removed from the list of new cars on Fiat’s Italian website. The vehicle remains on sale here in America for the time being, but this news doesn’t bode well for the vehicle.
One of America’s great cheap sports cars is apparently about to disappear. Fiat CEO Olivier Francois recently told British-based publication Autocar that the Fiat 124 Spider convertible was unlikely to return for a new generation.
The Fiat 124 Spider was a great idea for a two-seater convertible on paper. Take the rock-solid Miata platform, add Italian style and a turbocharged engine, and make it available with a manual transmission for less than $30,000. Fiat executed that formula, but no one is buying them. The 124 Spider is America’s least popular car, and even incredible deals can’t get them off dealer lots.
Why has the 124 Spider not done well? A couple of factors. Fiat’s bold re-entry into the American market has fallen flat. Americans don’t trust the brand. Cars like the 500 and the 124 Spider, while stylish, are not the sorts of large, practical vehicles Americans traditionally buy in large numbers. And Fiat’s attempts to get more practical have underwhelmed profoundly.
The two-seater convertible market is a small niche. Far fewer young adults are celebrating their carefree stable employment by buying impractical cars. For a two-seater to work, it needs to offer premium performance or a premium pedigree. The 124 Spider did neither.