I hate FIAT cars…
Fiat has come a long way in making decent cars.
The current Grande Punto came about because of a joint venture between GM and Fiat. Fiat gave GM it's small diesel engines and GM gave Fiat it's unibody platform for the new Vauxhall Corsa. They both use the same suppliers to make the Grande Punto and Corsa. With the exception of the larger hip line on the Corsa, I can take off both bumper covers and debadge my Grande Punto and make look exactly like the Corsa.
So if you trust GM, Vauxhall and Opel, then you shouldn't have a problem with Fiat.
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Originally, Fiats were to be sold by Fiat dealerships in the US when they made their comeback into the US market. However, due to the current economic climate, Fiat decided to use a dealership system that was already in place to keep costs down. Then they were to be sold under GM's dealerships. Now it looks like they will be sold under Chrysler's dealerships.
Part of the problem that lead to the break up of the GM/Fiat joint venture {design and sales} was that GM wanted to rebrand some of the Fiat cars as Chevys when they went on sale in the US. Fiat only wanted to have their cars badged as Fiat, not rebranded as Chevy as well.