NCD (new car day)

[mrpinter]

I just brought one of these home tonight. A white Fiat 500 Sport model, just like this one:

I've just driven it home from the dealership so far, but initial impressions are pretty good. My 89 Mercedes finally died, and I wanted an around town/occasional freeway use, sort of scoot, and this one will fit that bill nicely, I think. Yes, it is very small; and it is a little bouncy and buzzy at freeway speeds; and the back seat is a joke for adults. But on the positive side - it has adequate power, the gas mileage should be great, it has pretty good storage space with the back seats folded down. And, most importantly - it's fun to drive. Fit and finish, overall quality of materials, and engineering, are all impressive at it's price point. It's another payment again, which I was hoping not to have for a while, but at least I'm mobile again.

 

[Updown]

I just brought one of these home tonight. A white

Cute ...
Body is nice, could've had a better headstock !!

:dontknow: .... if your delivering Pizza's

But ...
I'll have one  :icon_jokercolor:

 

[Death by Uberschall]

Not sure how those Fiats are going to work out. The last time they were allowed into the US it didn't work out so well.

 

[Cagey]

Same with Renault when they bought up half of American Motors. They started making the Alliance at the Kenosha plant and they were pure, unadulterated junk. I doubt there's a single one still on the road anywhere. They made something else here, too, but I can't remember the name. Encore? Same thing, though. Junk, from bumper to bumper. Noisy, flimsily built, uncomfortable, grossly underpowered... the list was long. We used to have to rent them when we were doing the plant launch there, and it was miserable. We'd sometimes rent something nice like a Lincoln, risking our boss' wrath at expense account time, but it was worth it. After he had to rent one a couple times, we never heard any more guff about it.

 

[AutoBat]

I like the cinquecento . I'd have to spring for the Abarth model, in black w/red accents.
The Fiat Panda (upon which the 500 is based) has been a solid model in Europe for quite some time.

 

[JaySwear]

Awesome! I'm extremely jealous. I've been looking at these for a few weeks now and I'm thinking about trading my truck in towards one. The gas milage on my truck is a joke and I'm spending a ton on it. It's ridiculous. Let me know how you like it after a couple days of driving around!

 

[DangerousR6]

I love this commercial..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AE9SgnELIc

 

[mrpinter]

The Abarth was very tempting. I'm sure I'd love it, but my wife will be using the 500 occasionally, and she has trick knees - so a clutch was out. It's OK though, the 6 speed auto tranny on these things seems to be very well tuned to the powerplant - it's nice and spritely driving it. And of course the Abarth is about $10k more than the Sport. Here are a few pics that I took of the car this morning:

 

[Dan025]

fiat and Italy in general had labor problems in the 70's. the cars were sabotaged by the production workers and at one point in an effort to alleviate the problem cars coming in to the us had to have a full inspection at the dealership which in some cases meant a partial teardown of major components of the car.

bertone tried to work around this with the x-1/9 selling it in his own name after fiat pulled out of the us and being one of the first to build the bodies entirely with robotics but the car was aged i think 10 years by that point and was under powered. i owned 2 x1/9's one was a 79 fiat and the other was an 85 bertone and there was a major difference in the steel and the part fitment. the robot built bertone was miles ahead in quality.

i think the car can do well. as bad as the fiats in the 70's were many people i know had either a spider 2000 or a 124 and the fiat name brings back some nostalgia. it's a shame too. their cars gave a lot for the money. they were the cheapest cars with convertable tops dual overhead cams and diskbrakes on all 4 wheels. a true sports car at economy prices. not that they were fast but neither were most european "sports" cars. they were light and minimalistic like a sports car should be and the design was there. i

t's a shame fiat pulled out of the us becasue the 128 series of car was far ahead of it's time. the single cam non cross flow engine was a bit anemic but it was a fully modern car. maybe the first practical transverse engine front wheel drive platform and it didn't suck on gas like the 124 with it's twin cam engine. by 70's american standards the 124 wasn't a fuel hog but today 12-22 mpg from a 4 cyl would piss people off. the 128 single cam on the other hand could just about reach 40mpg, my x1/9 got 36mpg highway, 28 average and that was with the 1500cc engine and a carburetor and i was right foot heavy(had to be the engine was too small). the 128 had a smaller engine with the same arcitecture.  if the british and italians could figure out how to engineer an electronics system without hard to find fuses and serious risk of car fires we wouldn't be driving japanese cars that are built in mexico today.

i dont know if i like the styling of the 500 but anyone looking at one dont be thrown by the epa milage estimates. they can far exceed the estimate but the engine is sport tuned and they expect you to be a little heavy in the right foot. some owners report milage in excess of 40mpg which is where it should be. some japanese imports and perhaps the ford festiva may do slightly better but probably aren't as fun. things like the tires and suspension tuning are what are fine tuned to get those last few mpg and fiat wouldn't make that compromise.

the technology in the fiat multi air engine is ridiculous. it has a lot of bottom end grunt for the size. the valves are actuated hydraulically through a combination of a camshaft and piston and an electronic actuator to give absolute control over valve movement. it sounds convoluted but i think the cam helps highspeed actuation problems. i think it would be hard to get a full operating range out of electronic or hydraulic actuation affordably otherwise. the italians like advanced design. this is something engineers have been playing with for decades but fiat is the first to put it in production that i know of. there are other methods of vvt but they dont stray very far from the conventional design like this does.

 

[keeper006]

Same with Renault when they bought up half of American Motors. They started making the Alliance at the Kenosha plant and they were pure, unadulterated junk. I doubt there's a single one still on the road anywhere. They made something else here, too, but I can't remember the name. Encore? Same thing, though. Junk, from bumper to bumper. Noisy, flimsily built, uncomfortable, grossly underpowered... the list was long. We used to have to rent them when we were doing the plant launch there, and it was miserable. We'd sometimes rent something nice like a Lincoln, risking our boss' wrath at expense account time, but it was worth it. After he had to rent one a couple times, we never heard any more guff about it.

Yep Cagey, it was the Encore, the hatchback model of the Alliance. My friend had one in college that he used just to drive drunk friends home since he didn't care if people threw up in it. Biggest piece of junk, when he decided to trash it for salvage, we drove it into a small tree a few times- the tree won.


79 out of 100 people don't know a piece of crap when they're sitting in it-

 

[m4rk0]

aww renaults are cute, especially the 2cv
anyway, my first 2 cars were fiats, one of them was a panda!!

 

[AutoBat]

aww renaults are cute, especially the 2cv
anyway, my first 2 cars were fiats, one of them was a panda!!

Citroën made the 2CV

 

[Alfang]

I thought Ford owns Fiat now

 

[Dan025]

they are distibuted through chrysler.

but fiat still does all the engineering and design. it's just a partnership like they had with gm before that when they were both going for more of the south american market.

my buddy chris runs this blog for it and has contacts at chrysler who are in charge of importing them. http://www.fiat500usa.com/

i forgot to add that there is a ford connection by way of mazda. fiat had a lot to do with mazda chassis design many years ago and alpha romeo who (along with practically every other italian car company) is owed by fiat may be using the mx5 chassis on something new.

basically everything in italy is owned by or partially owned fiat. from ferrari to lancia to things that have nothing to do with cars there is a lot of partnership with fiat. they consist of over 800 companies. it's an interesting organization structure. they have several coach builder companies who build bodies, and several manufacturers that use those coach builders. there are fiat engines and engines that are unique to sub divisions like ferrari, a couple companies that build electronics like magnetti/marreli which are mostly carbon copies of stuff used by gm but they also use bosch. it's a weird cooperative network of companies with different styles, engineering and nameplates and they pick and choose from the bunch what goes into what.

 

[Cagey]

Fiat owns Chrysler now. Or, at least a major part of it, like 60%. It was part of the bail-out deal they did a couple years ago.

 

[vic108]

looks like it would be a fun car to drive around town.
Wouldn't want to play chicken with it on the interstate with tractor-trailers though.

 

[Cagey]

Wouldn't want to play chicken with it on the interstate with tractor-trailers though.

I've heard that excuse for staying away from small cars many times, but nobody's ever defined what would have a chance against tractor/trailer rigs. The things are big and heavy, end of discussion. I don't care what you're driving, you mix it up with one of those things and you're in deep, meaningful trouble.

 

[anorakDan]

I learned to drive a manual transmission in a Fiat 128 SL I owned back in the late 19(undecipherable) Fun, cheap to operate, but pricey to maintain. There was always something breaking on it.

I'm sure they have got the mechanical gremlins worked out and left all the fun. Congratulations. A new car is always something to celebrate!

 

[AutoBat]

Wouldn't want to play chicken with it on the interstate with tractor-trailers though.

I've heard that excuse for staying away from small cars many times, but nobody's ever defined what would have a chance against tractor/trailer rigs. The things are big and heavy, end of discussion. I don't care what you're driving, you mix it up with one of those things and you're in deep, meaningful trouble.

I'd have to suggest the International CXT (I've seen at least 7 different ones on the road in the past 5 years)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_CXT

mostly because it's basically a semi.

 

[Cagey]

Now that's a pickup truck!

But, the heaviest one is only 25,000 pounds. A lowboy hauling a few coils of steel or a pile of drywall can easily weigh 3-4 times that, so it would still beat it in a wreck.