{"id":270,"date":"2025-07-11T08:11:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T08:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in4ride.com\/?p=270"},"modified":"2025-09-15T10:10:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T10:10:48","slug":"stellantis-reveals-super-plans-for-mzansi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in4ride.com\/?p=270","title":{"rendered":"STELLANTIS REVEALS SUPER PLANS FOR MZANSI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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Toyota South Africa Motors has SOMI, Volkswagen Group Africa has the Indaba. Now Stellantis<\/strong> has Media Connect<\/strong>. The one thing these have in common is, they provide a platform<\/strong> to insights on what brands have in store for the year ahead and strategic<\/strong> further future plans. Most importantly they share new products that are yet to be launched<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Opel Grandland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Opel Mokka<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I will admit to not doing much travelling lately and being in Johannesburg<\/strong> in winter<\/strong> was not on my bucket list of things to do. However, our overnight<\/strong> stay, a lovely dinner, a warm welcome from our hosts and other niceties, made up for the cold. The setting was the upmarket Montecasino<\/strong> in Fourways<\/strong>, north of Johannesburg with its visual splendour<\/strong>. The programme was not long, which was evidence that the world is now dealing with an audience<\/strong> with a shorter attention span. Group CEO Mike Whitfield<\/strong> led proceedings with insights on where Stellantis brands stand as part of the Middle East and Africa region, along with stats on the Mzansi<\/strong> market and how they plan to infiltrate and gain market share. The local manufacturing Plant<\/strong> operation that will be established, with see the assembly of African production<\/strong> supply. Most of their Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) demand is from the rest of Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Leapmotor<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Charl Timms<\/strong>, Group Head of Commercial Vehicles, followed suit with his plans to form a better standing for the brand in the seriously contested segment. We were introduced to Moeketsi Mapogo who now leads an internal brand \u201cPro One<\/strong>\u201d that encompasses all LCVs. These include the all-new  Citroen \u201cHola\u201d<\/strong>, an urban hatch with extended loading capacity, the Fiat Escudo<\/strong> minivan, and a charming Fiat Ulyusse<\/strong> 8-seater people carrier, to mention but a few. Mathapelo Khumalo<\/strong>, Head of Citroen, intends to solidify the brand\u2019s position in the R400 000<\/strong> B segment, a segment with some of the best-selling<\/strong> cars in the country. This confidence stems from the 61% growth<\/strong> in volume for 2025 and 129%<\/strong> in the previous year with the Stellantis Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jeep Compass<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Alfa Romeo<\/strong> had our jaws on the floor with the introduction of the Junior<\/strong>, with options in Hybrid and a fully-electric version of the small SUV, it\u2019s a stunner from any angle. Head of Jeep\/Alfa Romeo\/ Leapmotor<\/strong>, Janus Janse van Rensburg shared a stimulating strategy to best position Alfa Romeo for the local market. He also introduced the new fully-electric Leapmotor division. For 2026 expect to see the Jeep Avenger<\/strong>, Compass<\/strong> and the aggressive Recon<\/strong> hit our shores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jeep Avenger<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Jeep Recon<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Falk Zimpel<\/strong> (Head of Opel Middle East & Africa) and Tumelo Rantsane<\/strong> (Head of Opel SAF) closed proceedings with the launch of the new Grandland<\/strong>. Both are confident that this will place the German brand in good standing in the tough SUV market. At first glance I can attest to great futuristic looks, along with a spacious cabin filled to the brim with tech. The ride on the way back to airport as I was front passenger proved satisfying with the 134kW motor not battling to haul 4 adults with bags. Our driver was great host showing his favourite features in the vehicles some of which include heated and cooled massaging front seats. The Mokka<\/strong> was also on display in a stunning green colour, I can never forgive Opel for not doing better with the Mokka, the 1st<\/sup> gen was a hit!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alfa Romeo Junior<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We do hope wish Stellantis the best in these trying times as the onslaught<\/strong> from China<\/strong> seems to be never-ending. I do believe more visibility<\/strong> and a solid marketing strategy will give them good sales numbers<\/strong> as time goes. They have a great and enthusiastic<\/strong> team led by industry stalwart Mike Whitfield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toyota South Africa Motors has SOMI, Volkswagen Group Africa has the Indaba. Now Stellantis has Media Connect. The one thing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_regular_price":[],"currency_symbol":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[110,107,109,106,80,108,105],"tags":[117,118,130,113,112,127,114,115,116,121,129,128,125,119,120,123,122,124,111,126],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alfa-romeo","category-citroen","category-fiat","category-jeep","category-news","category-opel","category-stellantis","tag-alfa-romeo","tag-alfa-romeo-junior","tag-avenger","tag-citroen","tag-citroen-hola","tag-compass","tag-fiat","tag-fiat-escudo","tag-fiat-ulyusse","tag-grandland","tag-jeep-avenger","tag-jeep-compass","tag-jeep-recon","tag-junior","tag-leapmotor","tag-mokka","tag-opel-grandland","tag-opel-mokka","tag-pro-one","tag-recon"],"post_slider_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/in4ride.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Mike-Whitfield-MD-Stellantis-South-Africa-and-Sub-Sahara-Africa-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"post_slider_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/in4ride.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Mike-Whitfield-MD-Stellantis-South-Africa-and-Sub-Sahara-Africa.jpg",1200,800,false],"post_slider_layout_portrait_large":["https:\/\/in4ride.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Mike-Whitfield-MD-Stellantis-South-Africa-and-Sub-Sahara-Africa.jpg",1200,800,false],"post_slider_layout_square_large":["https:\/\/in4ride.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Mike-Whitfield-MD-Stellantis-South-Africa-and-Sub-Sahara-Africa.jpg",1200,800,false],"post_slider_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/in4ride.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Mike-Whitfield-MD-Stellantis-South-Africa-and-Sub-Sahara-Africa.jpg",600,400,false],"post_slider_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/in4ride.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Mike-Whitfield-MD-Stellantis-South-Africa-and-Sub-Sahara-Africa.jpg",600,400,false],"post_slider_layout_square":["https:\/\/in4ride.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Mike-Whitfield-MD-Stellantis-South-Africa-and-Sub-Sahara-Africa.jpg",600,400,false],"full":["https:\/\/in4ride.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Mike-Whitfield-MD-Stellantis-South-Africa-and-Sub-Sahara-Africa.jpg",1920,1280,false]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in4ride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in4ride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in4ride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in4ride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in4ride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/in4ride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":292,"href":"https:\/\/in4ride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions\/292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in4ride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in4ride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in4ride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in4ride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}