The report says that the storied Italian automaker -- which recently announced a spin-off from Fiat-Chrysler -- could follow its parent company in registering in a country such as the Netherlands, listing in New York and being based in London.

While it might make sense from a financial standpoint, it’s hard to imagine Ferrari being based anywhere other than Italy. The car has come to be associated with Italian luxury -- the automotive equivalent of an Armani suit. The colors of the Italian flag are even featured prominently in the company’s logo.

The manufacturing of the cars would still take place in Italy. Fiat Chrysler representatives declined to comment to Bloomberg, which noted that maintaining full Italian residency was still an option.

Which wouldn't matter, except that Fiat Chrysler Automobile N.V. FCA is toiling hard to revive the brand in the U.S. following a 25-year hiatus.

FCA began importing its sarcastically tiny Fiat 500 minicar to the U.S. in 2007 to mostly respectful reviews and tepid sales. Since then the automaker has added souped-up versions, slightly larger versions and now the 500X, a mini-SUV based on original. The time clearly has arrived to improve quality, and perhaps address the "Fix It Again, Tony" disgrace.

Olivier Francois, FCA's marketing chief for Fiat and Chrysler, said at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November: "We need to let our customers know that FIAT--NOW--has a perfect fit for America," the 500X.

To underscore the point that Fiat is a "sexy" and legitimate brand, Francois has decided to take on the brand's baggage directly, hiring Wieden & Kennedy to produce "Fix It Again, Tony." In the witty and engaging video, a squad of Italian mechanics "fix" a Honda Civic with a broken mirror by turning the vehicle into a new 500X.

The mechanics speak in fractured English and offer to make the owner of the Civic an espresso while he waits for the repair.

As Francois remarked about the 84-second video: "Really, it doesn't just feature a new car, it features a skeleton. The skeleton in the closet, the elephant in the room. His name was Tony, and he had to go." He noted that the Melfi, Italy plant where the 500X is built has been redesigned. The vehicle embodies 2.5 million hours of engineering and three million miles of testing, he said.

In terms of comparators, Fiat still brings up the rear in terms of quality ratings - which doesn't mean that its quality isn't sufficient to attract buyers.

Through October, Fiat's U.S. sales topped 39,000 up 7.7% compared with the first ten months of last year. Fiat returned to the U.S. in 2009, following Chrysler's bankruptcy, after exiting the market in 1983, part of a multi-prong strategy to join Fiat Chrysler into a global automaking enterprise. In the past year, FCA also reintroduced Alfa Romeo, FCA's European luxury brand to the U.S.

Francois and FCA haven't said whether "Fix It Again, Tony" will be aired on television. For now the automaker is satisfied to disseminate the video on social media and gauge the reaction. One potential trouble spot is the video's potential propagating an anti-Italian ethnic slur. Another is the video's insinuation that Honda sells boring cars that needs to be fixed.

The subcompact SUV segment is very hot in the U.S. and worldwide, providing lots of shoppers as well as lots of competition for 500X. My guess is that Tony will soon be playing to bigger audience on the wide screen.

Such a nationwide recall would affect vehicles made by five automakers: Ford Motor Co ; Honda Motor Co ; Chrysler Group LLC, a unit of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles ; Mazda Motor Corp and BMW AG .

NHTSA gave Takata until Tuesday to issue a recall. If the company does not, NHTSA “may begin proceedings” leading to fines for the Japanese air bag supplier of up to $7,000 per vehicle that the U.S. road safety regulator says should have been recalled.

But NHTSA is limited and cannot fine a company more than $35 million. The U.S. Department of Transportation, which includes NHTSA, has asked Congress to raise that limit to $300 million.

The letter follows a Nov. 18 press conference in which NHTSA Deputy Administrator David Friedman said the regulator would tell Takata to issue a nationwide recall for driver-side air bags made by the five automakers.

NHTSA has made no estimate of the number of vehicles that would be included in such an expanded recall. The regional recalls have involved about 4.1 million vehicles.

A letter from NHTSA to Takata Senior Vice President Kazuo Higuchi obtained by Reuters said Takata’s previous recall limited to areas of high humidity should be expanded because of incidents reported in California and North Carolina that are outside of the initial regional recall area.

Takata has resisted expanding the recall for driver-side air bags beyond the initial regional “high humidity” area.

Takata’s U.S. spokesman said on Wednesday that the company had no immediate comment to the NHTSA letter.

Welcome to another week -- one in which earnings season gets into full swing, with reports expected from big banks such as Citigroup C , Bank of America BAC and Goldman Sachs GS . There are also a few tech companies reporting, such as Google GOOG , eBay EBAY and Netflix NFLX . And investors will be keeping an eye on the market after a major sell-off on Friday that pulled the Dow Jones index into negative territory for 2014.

Here's what else you need to know about today.

1. Has calm returned to the markets?

U.S. stocks look set to open little changed Monday after a market rout last week that saw the S&P 500-stock index suffer its worst weekly drop since May 2012. In Europe, stocks have taken a pause following their steep three-week sell-off.

2. Nobel for economics announced

Early this morning the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that this year's Nobel prize for economics has been awarded to French economist Jean Tirole, a professor of economics at Toulouse University, who won for his "analysis of market power and regulation."

3. Hong Kong protests continue

The pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong are entering a third week. Earlier today, a crowd tried to charge the barricades used by protesters occupying part of Hong Kong's downtown region.

4. Fiat arrives on Wall Street

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will make its Wall Street debut Monday to great fanfare as the carmaker moves its center of gravity away from Italy. The world’s seventh-largest auto group sought the U.S. listing to help to establish itself as a leading global player through access to the world’s biggest equity market and the cheaper, more reliable source of funding it ultimately offers.

5. Eyes on Italy

Speaking of Italy … Italian eyewear group Luxottica will be in focus today after its shares slumped following news that the company's new chief executive, Enrico Cavatorta, is set to leave after just six weeks in the job.

--Reuters contributed to this report.

I’m sure many of your heads are still spinning from the whirlwind of Apple news yesterday (and the thousands of opinions you’ve read about it!) The world keeps turning, though. Microsoft is in talks to buy Sweden's Mojang -- the maker of the popular video game Minecraft -- in a deal that could be worth over $2 billion. And Dollar General is preparing to go hostile in its bid to buy rival Family Dollar. Here's what else you need to know today.

Sapphire glass just wasn’t ready for iPhones

One disappointment many Apple-watchers had yesterday was the lack of a ultra-tough sapphire glass screen on the new iPhone models. The material will be used on the Apple Watch, but Reuters reports that the cost was still prohibitive for phones.

Ferrari boss quits after criticism over Formula 1

Luca Cordero di Montezemolo is leaving Ferrari after 23 years at the luxury car maker. Just days ago Sergio Marchionne, chief executive of parent company Fiat, which owns a 90% stake in Ferrari, said the brand wasn’t doing well enough in Formula 1 racing. Di Montezemolo, who has been credited with turning Ferrari around, had recently denied he would be leaving. He will leave his post on Oct. 13 and Marchionne will take over his role.

Dollar General goes hostile

Now the dollar store wars are getting really personal. Dollar General will take its $9.1 billion offer to buy Family Dollar directly to the shareholders after leadership again rejected them. Family Dollar wants to sell to Dollar Tree, as that sale would allow CEO Howard Levine to keep his job.

Netflix and WordPress want net neutrality

An online protest in favor of net neutrality is planned for today, and some major players are involved. In addition to Netflix and WordPress, websites including Etsy and Mozilla will display a fake “loading” icon to show that losing net neutrality would allow ISPs to slow down web traffic to certain sites.

Good luck parking in SoHo

A parking spot in a new building in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City will cost you a cool $1 million, on top of what you pay for the condo. That’s more per square foot than the condo itself. If you’re not from New York, you may think that’s crazy. If you’ve ever tried to find a parking spot downtown, you’re probably thinking “worth it.”

A few quick things to know today before heading into the long weekend.

1. More McDonald’s are shutting down in Russia

We’ve already heard about how McDonald’s and other American brands are taking a hit in Russia in the light of sanctions and tension related to Russia’s actions in Ukraine. A total of 8 McDonald’s have now been shuttered, with two in Sochi closing yesterday, less than a year after the fast food company was an official sponsor of the Winter Olympics in that city.

2. What are consumers thinking?

The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey will come out today, letting us know just what shoppers feel about the economy as summer draws to a close.

3. Eurozone inflation dip continues

Inflation in Europe is continuing to trend downward, according to to reports. The New York Times notes that his could increase the pressure on the European Central Bank to take actions to prevent a drastic price drop.

4. Angry Birds? More like angry shareholders.

The CEO of Rovio, the company behind hit mobile game Angry Birds, is stepping down following a disappointing earnings quarter.

5. Fiat/Chrysler merger is in sight

Fiat shareholders officially failed to block this auto merger, meaning plans for the new company can move ahead as planned, reported the Wall Street Journal.

On Thursday, several copies of the sexy Italian two-seater were available for test laps at FCA's proving grounds in Chelsea, Mich. Aside from routine nitpicking, automotive journalists registered respect, if not awe, at the 4C's performance and especially its low-slung, curvy exterior.

Within a few months, 500 of Alfa's "Launch Edition" of the 4C -- featuring a few extra frills, such as carbon fiber accents in the interior -- will go on sale for just under $70,000 in North America. The company doesn't expect to sell more than a thousand or so of the hand-built 4Cs. The regular edition will cost slightly less, starting at $55,000; both are aimed at well-heeled customers who probably already own a few vehicles.

Fiat Chrysler has much bigger ambitions than this particular model. The 4C, to be sold at 85 Alfa Romeo dealerships, is the precursor of eight more Alfa models through 2018, all built in Italy and all containing a dose of Ferrari engineering and design expertise. Fiat Chrysler executives in Chelsea said the franchise could represent a $5 billion investment. Fiat Chrysler and Marchionne still must raise much of the capital that is needed.

Dave Sullivan, manager of product analysis for AutoPacific, said "the 4C will turn more heads than anything from Lotus," the British maker of exotic sports cars.

"I am six foot, three inches, though, and I can't drive it. My line of vision is above the sun visor. I also had a very difficult time trying to climb/roll out of it. This is not a car you'd want your wife trying to get out of in a skirt," he said.

Its limitations notwithstanding, Sullivan said he's "excited to see it on the road."

At 2,465 pounds and powered by a 1.7-liter engine rated at 237 horsepower and 258 foot-pounds of torque, the car has an extremely high power-to-weight ratio. It's not blindingly fast, but it's certainly quick enough to raise your pulse. Its light weight is achieved by a carbon fiber cockpit, extensive use of aluminum in the structure and plastic composite for the exterior.

Marchionne's management and strategy since taking over Chrysler following its 2009 bankruptcy, and uniting the company with Fiat, have been magical. Much work remains, though, to ensure Fiat Chrysler can remain a going venture; one of the most formidable tasks is the creation of a luxury franchise, which is Alfa's mission.

Keeping an eye on Alfa -- on what kind of buzz it generates and on how eager investors are to risk capital on the rest of product line -- are key to understanding Fiat Chrysler's future.

One is about returning war veterans, narrated by Oprah Winfrey, and the other is about farmers, starring Paul Harvey as the voice of God. Each is also about Chrysler products, of course, but the message — maudlin but effectual — is America. “We’re the only ones who can speak about Detroit today,” says Marchionne, who is the CEO of both Fiat and Chrysler. “We’re the smallest of the three, and there’s a level of legitimacy associated with us pitching the American story. Which is almost bizarre, because the thing is foreign-owned.”

Chrysler’s recent pedigree is complicated. The company was kidnapped by Daimler in 1998, sold into private equity in 2007, and bailed out by the federal government in 2008, and since then it has been sidling step by step into Fiat’s fold. The Italian carmaker started buying shares after Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, and by 2011 it had accumulated a majority stake. Fiat hopes to buy the remaining 41.5% from a UAW retiree trust fund, pending a Delaware court’s ruling on what the stake is worth; that could happen this summer. Chrysler, you see, is actually Fiat.

But Fiat, if we keep going, is really Exor, an investment company headquartered at the historic Lingotto factory in Turin, Italy, which is where I interviewed Marchionne in a haze of cigarette smoke the day after he returned from the Detroit Auto Show. Besides owning 30% of Fiat, which itself owns Ferrari, Maserati, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, and, oddly, the Turin daily La Stampa, Exor also has big holdings in commercial real estate brokerage (Cushman & Wakefield) and heavy equipment (CNH Industrial, which includes the former Fiat Industrial), and smaller ones in property development (Almacantar), banking (Banca Leonardo), media (The Economist and Banijay Group), paper (Sequana), and the Turin soccer team Juventus. Total sales in 2012 were $146.3 billion. That puts Exor at No. 26 on this year’s Fortune Global 500 list, up 19 spots from last year.

While Exor is a public company, it is tightly controlled by the descendants of Giovanni Agnelli, who co-founded Fiat (it’s an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino) in 1899, built it into one of the great industrial enterprises in Europe, and so gave rise to an enduring family fortune. Exor, you see, is the Agnelli family.

The Agnelli family has one leader, a capo di famiglia. Always one, always male. It was Giovanni Agnelli until he died in 1945. He chose as his successor his grandson and namesake, the Agnelli we knew as Gianni, or l’Avvocato (a nod to his law degree, though he never practiced). Gianni in his prime was brutally handsome, indiscriminately passionate, and daring in the extreme. Born to privilege, he fought on the Russian front in World War II, collected art and automobiles and mistresses, hung out with royalty, wore his wristwatch outside his shirt sleeve, fought the unions and won, and came to personify for the world what it meant to be an Italian man in full during the raucous and glittering middle decades of the 20th century.

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Gianni died in 2003, having left Fiat on the verge of bankruptcy. His successor — the eldest son of his only daughter — is a lanky, apple-cheeked, curly-haired engineer who was still a college student when the weight of the family began settling on his shoulders. The new guy has a Germanic last name, drinks tea instead of coffee, and prefers family outings to nights on the town. But as a businessman? He’s still just 37, and he has held the CEO title at Exor only since 2011, but considering the good things that have happened on his watch — the stabilization of Fiat, the successful investment in Chrysler, the reorganization of the far-flung family empire — he could outshine his ancestors. The Agnelli family, today, is John Elkann.

“Sometimes the grandfather would say to me, ‘I am sorry I ruined his youth,’ ” says John’s father, the novelist and journalist Alain Elkann. “In the sense that when one is young, one should have more light, more fun, be less overwhelmed by responsibilities. It’s one thing to create from nothing when you are young. It’s another to inherit a very heavy situation.”

In fact John had been preparing unknowingly for the role since he was a child. He was 5 when his parents divorced, and while he says he doesn’t remember the breakup, he remembers well the bitterness and recrimination between his parents that endured long after. “Because he was the oldest, he took unpleasant things,” says his brother, Lapo. “He had to toughen up in certain areas which are more emotional, and he had to do it young.” He was “the most serious of all of us,” says his sister, Ginevra, noting it was John who reminded them all to brush their teeth, John whose bed they came to in the night when they were scared, and John who, when the kids made a home movie, chose for his costume a suit and tie.

John Philip Jacob Elkann (he’s “Jaki” in the family) was born in New York City and raised like a diplomat’s child in London, Rio de Janeiro, and Paris. He speaks the languages of all those places, plus a little Russian; his Italian, natives say, is fine, but his sentence construction sometimes sounds a little off, as if he were translating from French. Vacations were often spent in Italy with his grandparents on both sides of the family. When it came time to go to college, he chose to return to the country that to him felt most like home. Gianni nudged him to study economics at Bocconi in Milan, but Elkann opted instead for engineering at the elite Politecnico di Torino. Because “engineering was tougher,” Elkann says. “It just felt more challenging.”

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Being in Turin also meant more opportunities to spend time with his grandfather Gianni. They met often for meals and long conversations about business. Slowly, says Elkann, the outlines of a future somewhere within the family firm began to take shape. Yet he was in no way prepared for the brief conversation that took place at Villa Frescot, the Agnelli family home in the pine-clad hills overlooking Turin, when he was 21.

An older Agnelli cousin, who was being groomed for the capo position, had died suddenly, leaving a board seat open at Fiat. After lunch that day, Elkann recalls, his grandfather said, ” ‘I’m thinking about the appointment on the board, and I think it should be you.’ I wasn’t expecting that. I asked him, ‘Do you think it makes sense?’ ”

Reasonable question. In certain photographs of Gianni as a young man one can see clearly that the grandfather and the grandson are descended from the same line. Yet their personalities could hardly be more different. Gianni was devilish and splashy; Elkann, by temperament and appearance, is almost cherubic. He is invariably described as shy.

Having recently spent a fair amount of time with Elkann — for a series of formal interviews in New York and Turin, at lunch with his kids at the Eataly restaurant across the street from the Lingotto headquarters, on a flight from Turin to Rome aboard the company jet, and during a visit to the studios of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei in Beijing — I don’t think “shy” is the right word. Not for a billionaire industrialist who wears excellent suits, enjoys ocean yachting and small, fast cars (“not absolute speed, more acceleration”), is married to a contessa, and named his three offspring Leone, which means lion, Oceano (ocean), and Vita (life).

That said, most men of Elkann’s wealth and standing whom I’ve ever been around seem to move through the world as if the camera were always rolling. Elkann, who has a sometimes disconcerting habit of staring intently at people, behaves more as if he’s watching the movie. Gianni always took the wheel; Elkann, when he’s working, is content to be driven. If the car is full, he’ll squeeze into whatever seat is available, even the middle one in the back. Once, after a visit to Grugliasco, the new Maserati assembly plant near Turin, he insisted that I take the keys to the Quattroporte from his very reluctant bodyguard and drive us all back to Lingotto.

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Elkann’s innate deference, his “Talmudic” way, as his Jewish father describes it, of avoiding direct contradiction, and his willingness to ask questions — all that gave him space to grow within the family incubator. “Everyone was wanting to be helpful,” says Elkann, who was guided closely in those early days by the family’s longtime consigliere, Gianluigi Gabetti. “Again, I was very young. I was not a threat to anyone, which clearly helped. If I was 40 years old, maybe the dynamics, the chemistry, would have been different.”

Gianni Agnelli died in January 2003, followed 16 months later, after a brief illness, by his younger brother Umberto. Suddenly Elkann was the last one standing. His apprenticeship, which had included a summer working incognito at a headlight factory in Birmingham, England, and a world tour with GE’s elite Corporate Audit Staff, was over. “Were we worried that he was too young at that time? Probably,” says family member Lupo Rattazzi. “We were coming from a very traumatic period. He inherited a Fiat that was essentially broke. The challenges ahead were absolutely staggering.”

The family’s flagship was adrift. Two significant capital infusions had failed to make things right. Fiat was hemorrhaging $2 million a day, the stock was plummeting, and the banks, which owned more than $3 billion in convertible debt, were circling.

While the Agnelli business dynasty had always had a family head, the companies within it, including Fiat, had sometimes had outside CEOs. When Umberto died, Fiat’s CEO was a man named Giuseppe Morchio. He pushed the board to make him chairman as well. Most in the family believed that Morchio was doing a good job in difficult circumstances, but they were loath to assign total control to one outsider. Fearing Morchio might quit if he didn’t get what he wanted, Elkann flew to Geneva for a secret meeting with Marchionne.

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Marchionne at the time was CEO of SGS, a Swiss company controlled by Exor. He had been appointed to Fiat’s board a year and a half earlier, but the fact is, he was running a company that tests toasters and baby toys. “I had never made a car or a tractor,” he says now. “I really didn’t know shit.”

They ate at Marchionne’s favorite Geneva restaurant, Windows in Hotel d’Angleterre, overlooking the lake, and afterward, when the evening had reached the grappa stage and Elkann, who normally doesn’t smoke, was matching Marchionne light for light, Elkann humbly asked Marchionne for his help: If Morchio were to quit, would Marchionne consider becoming Fiat’s next CEO?

“I sincerely hope you don’t need me,” he told Elkann.

At seven the next morning, Marchionne says, he got a call from Gabetti, the family consigliere. “He said, ‘I know you saw the young man last night,’ ” Marchionne recalls, ” ‘but he was speaking on behalf of the family.’ ” Marchionne agreed to go forward. When the board chose a new chairman — Fiat veteran (and current Ferrari chairman) Luca Cordero di Montezemolo — Morchio quit; two days later, Marchionne took over as CEO. While initially few outside the family took Marchionne seriously (he is still seething about the “patronizing look” he got the first time he met the GM GM CEO Rick Wagoner), his appointment marked the beginning of the turnaround at Fiat, and ultimately at Chrysler, and counts as the first big win in Elkann’s column.

On Jan. 24, 2013, the Agnelli clan gathered at Turin Cathedral for a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of Gianni’s death. The president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, attended, together with cabinet members, bankers, industrialists, the American ambassador, what seemed like the entire Juventus soccer team, and seven full rows of family members. Ordinary Torinesi packed the pews and spilled over into the piazza outdoors. The archbishop of Turin read a missive from the Pope.

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Elkann sat right up front — with his wife, Livinia, their two boys (the 1-year-old girl stayed home), and Gianni’s widow, Marella. On the day of the funeral, 10 years before, many recalled, the skies over the city had been leaden. The gloom then seemed to capture the family’s sadness at the passing of an era and its worry about the future.

Today, appropriately, the skies were blue. While the results would not be reported for another week, Elkann already knew that Fiat had just concluded one of its most successful years ever, thanks entirely to surging profits at Chrysler. The auto group’s net earnings in 2012 were $1.86 billion; without Chrysler, it would have lost $1.38 billion. “I felt it was an opportunity,” Elkann says of the decision to begin buying Chrysler in 2009. “I didn’t feel it was going to be such a game changer.”

Buried in the Fiat results was fresh evidence of just how dramatic a transformation Elkann has overseen as the family business tilts increasingly toward global markets. A decade ago Italy accounted for almost half of sales by Fiat and its subsidiary brands; today it’s less than 10%. That’s due largely to Chrysler’s positive contribution, but also to surging sales in Brazil, and the negative impact of the collapsed car market across Europe. Sales of all brands in Italy last year dipped to levels last seen in 1979.

The same global shift is taking place more broadly at Exor: Ten years ago three-quarters of Exor’s revenues came from Europe; today it’s less than one-third. Exor’s biggest market now is the U.S., followed by Brazil, Europe, and Asia. That’s why Exor measures its performance against the MSCI World Index, a benchmark it outperformed by more than nine percentage points in 2012 as net asset value surged 20.6%, to $10.04 billion.

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Managing that transition has been as tricky a political feat as a business challenge. Fiat isn’t just any other company; it’s close to the core of Italy’s national identity. The turnout for Gianni’s anniversary service was just the latest reminder of that. Another was the time the unions first learned that Fiat and Chrysler were combining and demanded a fuller explanation. Marchionne and Elkann were called to Rome for a meeting with Italy’s Prime Minister.

Fiat at its peak employed 300,000 factory workers in Italy; today only 62,000 remain. That number includes 950 workers recently rehired at Grugliasco to build the sixth-generation Maserati Quattroporte — part of Elkann’s strategy to redeploy production assets in Italy to build luxury cars for export. “The opportunity of doing that car, if we weren’t present in global markets, would not happen there,” says Elkann, and he goes further: Were it not for those global markets, “the company would have been bankrupt.”

Last month Exor sold its considerable stake in SGS to a Belgian company, Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, for $2.6 billion. The sale converts an additional 20% of Exor’s net asset value to cash, leaving the company with a war chest of nearly $4 billion. Most press reports have speculated that Exor will use the money to buy the rest of Chrysler, but the company has more than it needs for that.

So here is Elkann: still a young man, with the backing of his clan, sitting on a huge pile of cash at a moment when assets the world over are in distress. Expect him to make a big move soon — the next act in a family drama that has been playing on the world stage for more than 100 years.

This story is from the July 22, 2013 issue of Fortune.

He lost that bet.

Fiat's first model, the 500, has suffered from low sales and complaints from U.S. dealers of weak advertising support. Marchionne, the chief executive of Chrysler Group LLC and its Fiat SpA affiliate, is now reshaping the 500's marketing along more conventional lines. On Monday, Fiat announced that Laura Soave, 39, was out and Tim Kuniskis, 44, a Chrysler sales and marketing executive since 1992, is taking over.

Re-launching Fiat was never going to be a cakewalk. Soave "faced an uphill battle from the start," says Michelle Krebs, an automotive analyst for car-buying website Edmunds.com. Soave’s charge was effectively to introduce Americans to a brand that had no reputation whatsoever with young consumers and a not-so-sterling image with older ones. (The old joke goes that Fiat stands for “Fix It Again Tony.”) "I don't know how much money she had, but it probably wasn't enough," adds Krebs.

Fiat was hoping to duplicate the launch success of BMW's Mini in 2001, when the automaker relied on all sorts of unconventional stunts and events that went viral on the Internet. Moves like strapping the diminutive vehicle on the roof of a conventional SUV and parking it in public areas created buzz for the new brand. Because Mini was new and sales projections were relatively modest, BMW sought a less expensive way to market the car than by buying costly advertising.

Marchionne was in a similar position when he decided to bring Fiat back to the U.S. Both Chrysler and FIat are suffering from weak financial performance and thus have less to spend than bigger, more prosperous rivals. Plus, the 500 is similar to the Mini, a small, premium vehicle with a distinctly European flavor. Among the events Fiat staged was a drive-in-movie in Manhattan’s Times Square. Spectators were invited to sit in Fiat 500s, facing one of the outdoor screens.

That may have generated some buzz, but not enough. Why Marchionne hired Soave, an Italian-American who grew up in a Detroit suburb, is clear. A warm and charming demeanor with the press and dealers didn't hurt. But, the automaker insisted that dealers initially construct separate, dedicated Fiat "studios" — a costly stipulation — rather than rely on existing Chrysler stores. Many of the owners of the 134 studios would have preferred to see a large advertising expenditure by the automaker to stimulate customer traffic.

If more traditional, the new game-plan is likely a work in progress. Fiat recently hired actress Jennifer Lopez to promote the 500 in a series of television commercials. Meanwhile, the company also rolled out several variants of the 500, including a high-performance Abarth version. Sales have begun to pick up a bit. In October, sales were just under 2,000, bringing the total to slightly less than 16,000. Fiat skinned back on an earlier prediction of 50,000 first-year sales.

Fiat has its challenges cut out for it. Analyst Krebs thinks that beyond overall weakness in the automotive market, the size of the small-car segment remains questionable due to most Americans’ preference for larger, more powerful cars. And, she says, the small-car segment has plenty of new contenders, several of which offer better fuel economy and larger size for less money than the 500.

Still, the 500 does carry an undeniable message of romance and pizzaz, one J.Lo's sex appeal is supposed to tap into. Now, Fiat is likely to build on that.