Wonder if the mechanic's name was Tony...

 

Horrible marketing, J-Lo following are not gonna get a 500, her followers would get a Chrysler 300 with 24 inch DUBS or some basic crap like that. And after all the divorces, marriages, break-ups, make-ups and drama it's clear J-Lo is damaged goods and not a good spokesperson for a Fiat 500.

Pffftt J-Lo?

 

Fiat only went to bed with chrysler to get bailout money.no new chrysler product coming except the fiat/alfa based dart until after 2014. sergio is a crook!

 

The Abarth model is kinda cool, 160 HP/ 170 Ft lbs turbo motor, tips the scale at 2533 lbs . I believe Abarth is a seperate brand in Europe. Normal ones are not very masculine.

 

A coworker has a Fiat and one morning she saw me get out of my MINI. Well she slammed the brakes in her Fiat and said "IS THAT YOUR MINI!" She said she's been trying to figure out who owned the MINI.

I test drove a Fiat and wasn't impressed by the quality. We will see what the future holds.

 

I also test drove the 500 before buying my MCS. My previous car was an Alfa 156 and having waited and waited for Alfa to reenter the US market, I couldn't wait any longer. After the test drive, I was sadly disappointed. The 500 felt cheap and tinny. In terms of handling, it was zippy despite the 101hp but in no way is it comparable to the Mini for pure fun and readily available torque.

The marketing didn't help either. It suffered the fate of most quirky small cars - being labeled "cute." That pretty much lost half the US population as potential buyers. I recall the VW bug had a similar misstep when it was reintroduced to the US market. What guy wants a vase on his dash? Similarly, the "Pink Ribbon" special edition in support of Breast Cancer Research Foundation was undoubtedly a good cause but Fiat USA by appealing only to women dug themselves further into a hole.

 

IMHO those Jennifer Lopez commercials have placed the 500 squarely in the "girls' car" camp, just like the VW Beetle ended up. I think that they should have approached their marketing campaign with both sexes in mind.

James May had great things to say about the 500 in their episode where he raced the bicyclers (he lost).

 

Those JLo commercials don't help/hurt the brand. BMW has very shrewd marketing. They almost never put a famous star behind the wheel to overshadow the ultimate driving machine. It's all about the MINI/BMW, not about the how cool JLo looks in the car.

 

Going to have to say that Jennifer Lopez alone didn't do it....the bubbly design pretty much resembles a VW Beetle to begin with. With that design I wouldn't purchase a FIAT 500, though I understand its resembling the previous generation quite well, but that just doesn't tip the scale for me at all.

Lucky for me the MINI looks great and the Mini looked great as well as had a great heritage during its rally days! Anyways, proof of my point:

 

in a direct effort to stir things up:

IMHO MINI is trying very hard to shoot themselves in the foot by introducing new models that move farther and farther away from the original Mini

to wit:

did the Mini ever have a true convert'?

does the clubman mimic the Mini van? or the original clubman?

a 4wd Mini?

if you want a model expansion that mimics the Mini, where is our pick-up?

I bought my 2002 MINI because I thought they were capturing the look and feel of the 'classic Mini' .... sadly, every year they move away ... imho

Fiat has held very very true to the look and feel of the past 500 .... in that lane, they win?

 

There was some mention of SMART on page one of this thread - my dad just bought a 2012 SMART. When the SMART came to the states, it was made possible by Penske. SMART was recently sold to Mercedes Benz, USA which can only improve quality, etc. IMO, the build quality of the smart is a notch above the Fiat 500. I've driven both.

 

Hmmmm

when I test drove a SMART pre release because I'd put money down they told me the service would be by MB ..... and then that went away .... is it back now?

The flakey association with MB was a factor in my decision to not buy after my intinal buyer's deposit

 

So this is interesting...my dad had an '09 SMART (living in NYC) and loved it. I drove it several times, and thought it was nice and built very well, but a little rough around the edges. It's an automated manual tranny which is great, but needed some refinement. Also, the ride could shake you to pieces, especially in the city - the car's target market.

Since then (and I believe it's very recent) the company's ownership changed. The one he just purchased has a slightly revised tranny, and came with optional wider wheels and tires which help the ride greatly. Additionally, they made the steering less sensitive - this was a nice touch for the average driver because the wheelbase of the car is so short that the previous steering setup was a bit twitchy.

All in all, it seems positive that rather than have the SMART brand wither away due to suffering sales in the US market, MB stepped in to attempt to revive it. Hence the new advertising on TV, etc. Also, the dealership called and offered my dad a "by Mercedes Benz" badge to place on his tailgate, haha

 

@ Blackbomber:
What model was it? I really like the lines of the 70's wagons they put out. Rust got most of them, though.
I liked the couple of 500s I've seen in town, one owner told me she loved hers. Not the same as seeing the vintage version last summer while in Spain, but the same can be said for the classic minis I saw there.

 

Completely off topic, but I've noticed there are two BMW 2002's running around Athens these days. I really wanted one of those until I found out they get like 17 MPG.

 

I must admit, I don't think I've ever seen a Mini Cooper commercial, though I've been following them since they were announced over a decade ago. But the Fiat ads with JLo are really lame. As if -- yeah, she's rollin' around the hood driving her own Fiat.

It's not a bad car, but seriously, compare these matches:

BMW + Mini

Chrysler + Fiat

Oh my, who on earth thought THAT would be a winning combination?

 

Especially since 29 of them did not sell a single car in November.

 

Mercedes or Not, I dont think youre getting what your paying for, it still hits me as a "novelty" ride. But the Fiat 500 is looked as as a "girl" ride, kinda in the same sense if you see a guy driving a beetle, gives you that impression, thats generally speaking IMO. Its seems a level above SRT-4's, Jettas, I know all the dudes Ive known that own those got teased a little.

 

No stirring here, I agree with you. MINI should tread carefully when stepping away from that classic little bulldog.

I was tipping 500's in my teen years, in Naples. They look a little different now but are basically the same little car.

 

I saw some during some sunday football games this year. Classy ads, they just showed the cars and used the solid-color-border rectangle ad copy text design.

 

I bought my MCS new in May of this year.

Leading up to that, I was considering three new cars: A Fiat 500, Hyundai Genesis, and The Mini Cooper S.

In all honesty, I probably would have bought a Fiat 500 Abarth, if I could have. I love the Cooper S greatly, but even a vehicle as unique as the Cooper has become commonplace, and I really didn't expect the 500 to sell well. The unique aspect might have sold me on it. But the stock 500 is just too cute and lacking the *****, so the MCS it is. I'm happy with my decision.

 

Even though Mini is offering a lot of new models, they still have the classic hardtop. I like the hardtop the best for style and function. I kind of wish they offered a AWD Cooper HT.

The Fiat will never compete with Mini, IMO. Fiat is marketed as a girl's econobox car. It takes a long time to fix a bad rep like that. I don't know if the brand will last that long. There is a Fiat dealership in Worcester, MA that I drive by every day, and they seem like they have a lot of turn around with their cars, but it could be an illusion from them moving cars around.

I wasn't a long-time fan of Minis until I bought a used one as a daily gas saver. It took me driving one for a couple weeks to fall in love with it, so I was kind of a 'clean slate' new buyer with no real history with Minis. I loved my gas saving daily driver so much, I bought a brand new S. I don't know if I could have gotten this attached to a Fiat.

 

Too bad about the Fiat.

A lot of people spent countless hours working on getting this car to market, it is sad to see how it hasn't been doing well.

The commercials are horrible to watch. I can't decide if the commercial is about the car or about J-Lo. The dancing is horrible. There's just too much things going on in the commercial itself, it is detracting from the car itself. I actually switch channels when I see the commercial.

 

They should be running the Abarth commercial with the gorgeous Italian woman sporting the scorpion tattoo in the US and Canada, once they get the Abarth here of course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpi2IAec9Ho

 

Danigurrl: "they seem like they have a lot of turn around with their cars, but it could be an illusion from them moving cars around." Hahaha that's so funny. I can see it now... the General Manager is frustrated with zero sales. "move the cars around so people will think that the units are flying them off shelves!"

They definitely need to start over and dominate the market slowly. Like Honda and Toyota did in the 60s~90s.