LexBob2

Sunday evening we drove thru the lot of a fairly large Fiat dealership. They had a lot of inventory and a couple of Abarths. They do have a lot of fun exterior and interior colors and graphics packages etc.

Inside they had a couple of cars hanging from the ceiling and the dealership itself was attractive and upscale looking. I haven't paid much attention to how they are selling, but do see a few more on the streets these days.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

i've never seen one on the road.

mmarshall

Couldn't agree more. Both the exterior and interior color selection/graphics/trim-patterns on this car are superb....some of the best I've seen since the lively patterns/graphics and colors on the late-1960s/early-70s Dodge/Plymouth muscle-cars. Other manufacturers, particularly the bean-counters in the design-studios, should take notice.


????

That building must have had a strong roof.

LexBob2

The cars were hanging from chains and some type of cradle set up from steel beams in the exposed ceiling. Definitely an attention getter. Dealerships in IL are closed on Sunday so we were looking in the windows.

ArmyofOne

We see them all the time in Seattle/Tacoma. My wife wants one.
If it wasnt for the fact that I just can't see how they are safe, my wife would have one right now. I like the choices, and (were it a gender-neutral color) I wouldn't even mind driving it on occasion.

Lil4X

Fiat's reputation in America was stained back in the '60's and '70's by vehicles that were quite adequate for Europe, but couldn't stand up to hours of sustained high speeds on our interstates. They soon blew oil everywhere, but they were not alone - even a couple friends with vintage Rolls Royces had similar problems until they went back to factory spec non-detergent vegetable oil lubricants (Castrol).

In its earlier years after the war, Fiat like many Italian manufacturing companies emerging from the chaos of conflict, was the victim of its engineering outrunning its manufacturing expertise. Case in point: my Dad designed, sold and installed industrial pipe welding machines all over the world. In Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and here at home, there was either a strong manufacturing base, or an ability to adopt American manufacturing techniques very quickly. In Italy there was not. Italy excelled at one-off hand-built products - they were superbly engineered and built with the attention due a work of art. Unfortunately when they had to produce for the mass market, all of that manufacturing expertise went out the window. At the time, Italian industry didn't understand the series manufacturing process as we know it and was stuck with an artisan culture of production.

In the mid-'60's in Breda Fachini's large manufacturing plant near Milan, one of the production lines near Dad's welder installation built railway wheels and axles for their high-speed trains. A worker would grind the radius of the wheels to ensure that they were perfectly round so that they would run smoothly at speeds over 200 mph. Dad watched in amazement as a worker would grind the circumference of a wheel, then measure its diameter with a steel plate "C" jig he used as a caliper that had been cut and ground to a precise dimension. He would slip the jig over the wheel, "miking" his way around the rim to check for high spots, which he would mark with a crayon. What came next was just hair-raising to my father.

The worker would toss the caliper on the shop floor, pick up his grinder, and go to work on the offending areas. He didn't realize that every time he threw that jig on the concrete floor, it changed dimension - maybe by only a few thousandths, but after bouncing off the floor all day, you had to wonder just how close that jig was to the standard and if those wheels were more oval than round. Dad sneaked over during the factory's lunch hour and checked - sure enough, one of the wheels just completed wasn't even close to being round. They hadn't considered turning those wheels on a precision lathe as we might do here in the US, but labor-intensive seemed to mean hand-crafted precision in their minds. Maybe that level of precision didn't matter on their freight haulers, but coaches on Italy's Alta Velocità TGV railways must have been a rollicking ride, thanks to manufacturing techniques that seriously lagged the company's excellent engineering.

Friends with Fiats and some really nice Alfa Romeos in the '60's had problems when swapping heads or other highly machined parts. Now I knew why. It almost seemed as though Italy hadn't picked up on that "interchangeable parts" regime that we learned from Cadillac back in the 'teens. That not only wreaked havoc with reliability, it made replacement parts kind of iffy. Better get on good terms with a local machine shop to true up those new heads before you even trial fit them. That or lay in a good supply of head gaskets.

I've always been huge fan of Italian automobiles, in fact I'm a fan of just about anything Italian - food, wine, ladies . . . . I sincerely hope that this relaunch of Fiat into the American market, both with its proprietary brands and the design expertise it will bring to stodgy old Chrysler Corp. will be molto vantaggioso for all of us.

mmarshall

There are 14 exterior colors offered (far more than in many much more expensive vehicles) and a number of interesting interior trim/color packages. You two should be able to find something in there that pleases you.

oohpapi44

iTrader: (1)

I've seen 3 of these in my neighborhood (Queens) now and have been impressed by each one. They looked great.

(still waiting to see a 4GS on the road)

mitsuguy

iTrader: (2)

Here's my quick review... I've put about 1000 miles on one of these Fiat's...

They are annoying little cars to drive, IMO...

the brakes are touchy, but not that great, the steering has very fast initial turn in, but isn't that good... they feel like they drive well, until you actually drive one hard, which, again, is irritating to say the least...

storage area in the back is almost nil, to get a decent load of groceries, you have to fold down the rear seats... they don't even get that awesome of gas mileage in real world driving, I got the same fuel mileage with a 2011 Ford Mustang V6, and much better mileage with a 2012 Ford Focus, mixed city and highway driving...

mmarshall

Do you own one, or just work at a Fiat dealership and get to drive one as a company-perk?

I agree with at least some of your conclusions, and noise-isolation on them isn't that great either. But it must be remembered that they were (and are) primarily designed as an inexpensive car for Italian urban-driving conditions, not necessarily for what we have here in the U.S. I think that the 500 was brought back here to the U.S. primarily as a niche-vehicle for those who wanted something different, with more personality (and a different driving feel) from the typical appliance-like road manners of Camrys, Corollas, Accords, etc....

mitsuguy

iTrader: (2)

I guess you could call it a company perk.... I live in a small town and have to drive a few hours for company meetings... instead of paying mileage for me to drive my personal car, I get to rent cars from Enterprise one to three times a month... I'm pretty good friends with the girl that works there, so I get to choose from available cars, so I pick something different every time, for the most part... So far out of the cheaper cars, my favorite is the Ford Focus weirdly enough as I'm not a huge Ford fan at all... I will not be renting another Fiat unless that is all they have available...

mitsuguy

iTrader: (2)

I don't care for their different "feel" the brakes are touchy and they feel great at first, but if you really want to stop, even in a little car, they are just barely sufficient... same with turning - they are quick to turn in, and they handle relatively flat, they just don't have great grip....