They’re talking about the original Fiat 500, called “Cinquecento,” which was produced from 1957 to 1975. The Cinqucento produced from 1991 to 1998 was a different car, which in fact replaced the 126, which was the replacement for the original 500. the 90’s Cinquecento, incidentally, was the first Fiat to manufactured solely in Poland. At the beginning of Cinquecento production, the factory was still making the 126p, the last surviving variant of the 126.
Oh, I’m sure they’re popular for this reason. My comment was aimed more at the idea that the Italian standard of automotive sexiness had shifted so significantly that this car was the new face of four-wheeled lust. It really does just look rather … dull.
I owned a first generation Panda. Mine was two-toned tan and rust.
I mean, yeah, it’s cute-but $20,000 for this? FIAT now has an accumulated debt of over $18 billion-and I don’t see the company ever getting out of the hole its in. The problem with the car industry (here and in Europe)-OVERCAPACITY: the world has about 3X the production capacity it needs. Is FIAT allowed to exclude japanese cars from Italy?
Again, cute concept-but outside of nostalgia buffs-who wants a 40-year old design?
It’s the Chevron cars come to life!
I think it’s cute. Can I have one mommy? I promise to take care of it and make sure it’s housebroken.
If it was cheap and efficient enought, I would buy it. But it looks like I’ll have to go to England or Brazil to get one – haven’t bothered to find which is closer to Wisconsin.
I’m not so sure. It certainly seems small enough to jam itself into an IPOD docking station, head or tail first. And if the same people who used to drive Fiats here are the ones about to buy this model, I’ve no doubt it will be attempted often and at a high rate of speed*.
*How fast Can you get a Fiat to go? No, I mean without a tow-truck…
I could get mine up to about 75 mph on the autostrada. Accelerating to that speed took a long time.
It isn’t called a city car for nothing.
It looks like they’ve copied Ford’s idea of how to protect the passenger cell in a small car, as in the Focus and new model Fiesta. Put a great big curved steel bar running from the front to the back on either side. Unfortunately, Fiat seem to have made it symmetrical.
Wikipedia says they’re coming to the US.
[DubyaMode]“England or umm Brazil…?”[/DubyaMode]
Sure they will, in 2010, or perhaps not at all, depending on how well you read the article.
But they’ll probably wind up just having the “Fiat of Cars”. And that’s not a good thing.
And their web site sucks. It forces you to listen to their lame music. You can turn it off, but as soon as you click another page on the site, it comes back. Ecchh.