I might trade in my Aztek for something that looked like that!
Oh Em Gee, that’s bad. Really bad.
Let’s be honest about 1970s quality control.Everyone sucked.
NOBODY, not even “saintly Japan”, was immune to poor quality. I know of plenty of Toyotas, Hondas, Datsuns (what they called US market Nissans until '83, for you youngsters), AND MOST ESPECIALLY Subarus of that decade that didn’t make Payment 35 without a rust-through. A mechanic I knew called Datsun “Dat Soon?”, as in Dat 'Ting broke dat soon?
I’d give a Chrysler-branded Fiat a chance. That Qubo van would make a nice replacement for my Ranger as a city-delivery vehicle.
Oh, it’s no Aztek.
Weird thing is, I had one as a rental once - and it’s actually a really nice vehicle. Roomy like all out, great view in all directions and gigantic mirrors to boot, the best laid-out cockpit I’ve ever seen, all the little niggly details - the damn thing, ugly as it was, just worked. (Did OK on the Autobahn, too. No muscle car, but handled the speed nicely once it got there.)
Oh, the memories. 1966, 16 years old, new driver’s license and my dad bought a brand new Fiat 600D. Think Volkswagen Beetle, but smaller. Suicide doors. Incredibly tiny engine. Fun to drive. I actually turned it around inside a small two car garage.
But, as others have noted, they were junk. Also, as others have noted, so were all the other small cars back then.
I think they’d be worth a test drive.
I’ll say this. Fiat makes better looking cars than Chrysler dreamed of. Maybe if in the course of this merger they are able to borrow the few technologies and manufacturing traits that work from each brand they might have a chance. Oh, and maybe make a interior that isn’t shit.
I wants a Fiat 126!
It’s sooooooo caaaauuuuuuttttte!
I followed the OP’s link to the Fiat site & randomly looked at a few of the models. After the 6th one which looked like a cheap copy of an 8 year old Nissan I lost interest.
How can I short the stock of Fiat USA? This won’t take long. It’ll sink without a trace.
I agree, alot of the Fiats look just live every other car out there.
If they put the new engines/gadgets and gizmos inside of the really CUUUUTTTTTEEE older styles, then they’d have something.
I think A-R would find a market in the USA-do they still make the Spyder sports coupe?
You can say a lot of things about the current Fiat lineup, but “unoriginal” is not one of them.
They make a Spider, but it’s a convertible, not a coupe. That’s what spider means.
“Spider” (and “spyder” or whatever faux Italian they use) comes from small carriages with overlarge wheels (whose spokes looked liked arachnids). Hence, sports cars, not convertibles.
Those small carriages were open topped. By convention, it means convertible. You’re welcome to try finding a Spider (or Spyder) that isn’t.
You know, a Chrysler-Jeep-Fiat-Alfa Romeo show room might actually be worth visiting. They might need to install some Chrysler engines in those A-Rs and find a midpoint between the weird Italian look and the boring Chrysler look but they’d have an interesting line up.
They could pair the Jeep lineup down to 3 models, the Cherokee as the high end model, the Liberty as the compact SUV and the Wrangler as, well, the Wrangler. The Fiats could fill in the entry level segment and econoboxes with the 500, the Bravo II and the Linea. A-R could fill in as the sportier mid-size lineup with the 159, Brera and Spider. The Chrysler brand could hold onto the Minivan market with the Caravan/Town and Country and the full-size and family mid-size market with the 300 and something decent to replace the Sebring.
It’s a tall order and they’d have to do something to spruce up the styles and share some of the technologies that work, but it’s a portfolio that would work if the products can compete.
They dreamed up the Viper, Crossfire and Prowler. They brought back the convertible and came up with the PT Cruiser. They are the only American company that takes chances .
Or they could just start putting on Chrysler name on everything and stop wasting time and money selling the same cars with three different badges. I really believe that badge engineering is one of the US motor industry’s five biggest problems.
Keeping the Jeep brand for off-roaders and the Dodge brand is alright, and they took a big step forward when they got rid of the Eagle moniker (and Plymouth?)
Where did they “bring back” the convertible from? I agree with you on the taking chances thing, though, even though the PT Cruiser is just about the ugliest vehicle on the road that isn’t an Aztek (or Multipla!)
The PT was retro and started a trend. Ugly is in the eye of the beholder.The convertible thing came when they brought back the full size convert after it was gone from the big 3 for decades.I don’t know why but the big 3 quit making them for a long time.
Ford and GM still don’t make any “full size” convertibles I can think of.
Anyway, there have always been four-seater Saab, Mercedes, Audi and Renault/Peugeot convertibles.
They took chances with niche cars and then proceeded to shit the bed when it came to mainstream, tent-post models. Whoopee. Every brand brought the occasional experimental/concept car to market.