Fiat 500: "Possibly the Best Small Car on the Planet"
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 07.12.07
We motor on about how it shouldn't be too hard to squeeze more efficiency of American cars, and that the Europeans and the Japanese are doing it already. Here is another example: the Fiat 500 or Cinquecento. Eric Reguly of the Globe and Mail rocketed around Torino at 100 MPH and says "Fiat has created a marvellous car, perhaps the best small car on the planet. It's a compelling combination of value, style, safety, performance and parkability, though reliability is unknown. (the joke used to be that FIAT was short for "Fix it again, Tony) He continues: "I know this car would obliterate machines like the (smaller) Mercedes Smart and the (larger) Toyota Yaris in the Canadian and American markets."
"In terms of fun, driveability and space, it kills the Smart car. In terms of price, it kills the Mini. In terms of style, it kills the Yaris and rivals like the Honda Fit. If Ford, GM and Chrysler were smart, they would build a city car like this. Fiat has made the smallest cars desirable again." ::Globe and Mail
The new 500 had to be a nostalgic reinterpretation of the old 500, yet be completely new. Fiat, led by Italian-Canadian chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne, appears to have struck the right balance.
The new car, though bigger, is instantly recognizable as a 500, in the way that the new Mini Cooper shares a similar shape with the old Mini. That's where the similarity ends. Underneath the skin, the new 500 is a thoroughly modern machine.
It comes with two gasoline engines — 1.2-litre and 1.4-litre — and a turbo diesel of 1.3 litres with a claimed fuel consumption of only 4.2 litres/100 kilometres in combined city and highway driving. That's the equivalent of 67 miles a gallon.
There are seven airbags and electronic stability control is standard on some models, available on others.
The 1.4-litre car we drove was fairly fast, with a 0-100 km/h time of 10.5 seconds. The 500 is clearly not a sports car, nor is it meant to be. But it is no slug.
The handling is rewarding and the engine is responsive, though it has to be revved high to move ahead of the pack when the light turns green.
Marchionne has said he wants the 500 to be the "iPod" of cars — simple, popular and fashionable. To broaden its appeal among the fashion-conscious and young drivers, it is available in 500,000 possible design combinations. Options include 15 types of seat upholstery, 12 body colours, nine types of wheels, 19 different stickers, three interior fragrances, an iPod player, a USB port and chrome galore.
Loading the car up with goodies and the more powerful engines can jack up the base price of €10,500 ($15,000) to €14,500.
This is very pretty. But it is still a car. When will we stop making excuses for getting rid of them -- personally and as a society?
I'm sold. Why the hell can't I buy this here in the USA? It frustrates me to no end that America has such an abysmal car market.
It angers me that cars like this already exist, and are seen abundantly in Europe, yet American auto makers are crying like babies, saying that they can't even hit 35 MPG's by 2017.
Talk about cherry-picked specs…
"In terms of fun, driveability and space, it kills the [ill handling, high-CG, two-seat] Smart car. In terms of price, it kills the [high-priced, BMW-built, premium-compact] Mini. In terms of style, it kills the [hideous] Yaris and rivals like the [awkward looking] Honda Fit.”
By all reports, the 500 is a fine car, but doesn’t really stand out in terms of performance or efficiency among its similar rivals except for its retro-styled throw-back to its ancestry. How does it compare to the Fiesta or Corsa, which are also fun-to-drive, versatile, good-looking, efficient, reliable, similarly price, and very popular in Europe?
“If Ford, GM and [Daimler-]Chrysler were smart, they would build a city car like this.”
The hatred for Ford, GM, and DC often found on this website, like most forms of hatred, are the result of ignorance. Again and again contributors and commenters to TH say that if they built a car like “this” or “that” it would be a huge success. What they and Fiat know that Eric Reguly apparently does not, because they are smarter than he, is that there little or no market for these cars in the US at a profit for anyone outside of Asia's low-cost labor force.
Ford, GM, and DC, build the aforementioned Fiesta, Corsa, and Smart cars respectively, but are only now bringing or considering bringing these to the US, because only now, with fuel prices at their highest are US consumers seriously considering smaller cars. However, to sell them here, with our still deflated small car prices, they will sell for about two-thirds the price that they trade for in their home markets, far below the cost to build them. They will sell at a LOSS, only justified as CAFE offsetters. Fiat are considering bringing the 500 to the US, but no time soon, and only in the highest performance (lowest efficiency) Abarth-tuned trim level, as a premium priced, limited volume, niche market vehicle, and only as part of an effort to bring their larger, less efficient, higher priced Alpha Romeo cars here.
I have asked the question many times but have yet to have one person here explain to me how selling more cars at a loss will improve anyone's bottom line. Anyone?
the price point seems good for the middle class, but its attempt to "obliterate....the smart car" would be tough. fiat has never made a stylish car, and this is another example. they make cheap cars. if you want style you will go with the smart car.
Let's not badmout the US carmakers too much. They can make these small cars with no issues, but many Fat lazy americans need their big phallic symbols to feel like they have some power.
GM and DC are working on Hybrid vehicles that willl be available very soon. Be patient. Fat Americans will soon be drying Hybrid trucks.
Hi, I see that there are many people that say American car manufacturers are not building small cars! Aren't Ford american? they build the fiesta here in Europe which is everywhere and probably their most popular car, then we have GM who own Vauxhall here in the UK and again they build the corsa another massive success. Am I missing something?
Great car! 500blog
No front-wheel-drive is EVER fun to drive. Instead, the new 500 offers reasonable mpg, reasonable amount of space and good looks. The last argument if naturally debatable. What the new 500 doesn't offer is reasonable price. It's too far from the cheap-car-market (at least here in Finland) and is priced similarly to the Mini, based solely on the nostalgic value. This car doesn't offer enough bang for the buck, so to say.
I'm baffled why that journalist would believe that the Cinq would do better in the American market than the Toyota Yaris would. That's absolutely nonsense. It's simply too small and quirky for America to take to. From a green perspective the Fiat engine is fairly low-tech compared to the variable valve powerplant in Yaris cars too.
It is quite funny just how bad the American car market is though. The entire bottom 10 entries of worst cars in the recent Which? car survey were all American cars they dared to sell in Europe. Yet paradoxically the US would appear to be doing more EV and hybrid development than European manufacturers are, despite the fact that it's probably Europeans that would be more attracted to them on both practical and aesthetic levels.
for Americans, that's 56 mpg (US gallon instead of imperial)
Plese do not crusify me for this answer, I have moved to a city where bycycles and public transet are viable alternitives to the car but that is not possible for all the 12 million LA residents so this reasoned thoughtful answer does not represent my life choises just observtions on the civilization we have crested.
Yes it is a car; but if you live in car created cities ie. LA and many other population centers in the US and much of the developed world, LA just being the most convient and best knowen example, where there is very poor public transet and the distances are great what are your options?
Getting a bike is not an option for most, many people have physical limitations, add that to the distances required of most people going to jobs and just carrying on their mundain lives of sleping childern around, bycycing even electric bikes are not an option for many, some yes and we all should uitilize bycicles as much as possible but the fact remaind that cars will be with us for at least the mid term so why not make them smaller and more efficent. Life would be intollarable in the short term if all cars were elminated overnight or even is a short period, there is just no alternitave in teh short and mid term for the car. Those who advocate an imidate change have not though out the results of such an abrupt change.
The most difficulty issue in LA is that people are going every direction all the time. changing that is very difficult and not possible in the short term. Add to this this the long distances encountered by most just going to work and you quickly see that there will not be a quick change. I know that some will say tough, people should move closer to their work, but relize that most do not keep their jobs for very long so this would reuire more moving. Building denser housing would help but if the prices of housing drop for the people living outside the city they will not have the resources to move to closer housing. The web of life interconects all life patterns not just ones found in natural settings, everything is connected
We must never forget that we represent the radical fringe of the green movement, most people are content to sit in front of their bub tube and grips but do nothing, that seems to be human nature in the US at this moment in time. It is encombent upon us to lead and show a way that will be adopted by the masses, this car by getting better milage is a step, not a complete soultion but just one step.
I know that many will be angry with this answer but supress your anger towards me who is on your side and lives a very green life and direct it towards WORKABLE SOULTION TO THE PROBLEM OF GETTING EVERYONE ON BOARD.
Namaste
Corvus
randy, do you realize that the US measurment system is the imperial system?
speaking of fiat 500
i want an original one
from the 60s
=]
i want an original
fiat 500
from the 60s
Anonymous asked :
I have asked the question many times but have yet to have one person here explain to me how selling more cars at a loss will improve anyone's bottom line. Anyone?
Answer: Fixed cost.
A big part of a the cost of a car is fixed, just about everything related to the plant and equipment to build it, advertising etc. ITs much like baking bread.
Let's say it cost you a dollar to run the oven for an hour and it cost you a dollar for flour and such for a loaf of bread, and you sell the the loaf for 1.75. You bottom line is that you lost .25 cents..
Now if you bake two loafs and sell them at 1.65 each you have taken in 3.30 cents paid out 2.00 for flour and such and one dollar to heat the oven so you are now 30 cents ahead.
This is basically how the Japanese broke into the US market. They had excess plant capcity so rather than stop the line ( but continue to pay the fixed cost of the factiory they shipped excess to the US and sold it at a lost. In the late 60's a Toyota was much cheaper in the US than in Japan. They lost money on every car sold but not as much as they would have had they not built the car.