Ah yes...not so fond memories of the "fragile" Fiat. I owned a 124 Spider ('78) and it was high maintenance. The new Mini competitor is cute but I think Fiat has a lot of negatives to overcome, at least with us boomers. The company seems to have more money than anybody else so maybe things have changed for the better.

 

it's funny listening to a bunch of Mini owners knock Fiat for a history of quirks, the classic mini's were notorious (like all british cars) for horrible electrics (remember Lucas, the original Prince of Darkness), rust, and oil leaks like no other. Cheap, fun, & European didn't come without issues (even the more expensive cars had plenty of problems, Ferrari, Jag, ....).

 

You mean Lucas as in Loose Unsoldered Connections And Splices Electric? Their motto is "Get home before dark." They also invented the self-dimming headlight, and they hold the patent on the short circuit.

 

Nothing wrong with competition, bring it

 

+1 !!

I owned one and can testify to all these "quirks".

As I posted earlier, BMW did a great PR job in the early 2000's to connect their "new" MINI to the fond memories of old Minis. The old Mini's reputation is much better now than it was back in the day.

I still loved mine, but its reliability and quality certainly were lacking, if looked at objectively. Many of them were unloved, wheezing rustbuckets. It's just that the fun of ownership outweighed the pain of ownership for many (not all!) of us.

My point throughout this thread has been that Fiat could do the same thing, if they are careful and play up the fun and "La Dolce Vita" aspects of the old 500 and persuade people to forget the other less complimentary aspects of Fiat ownership, as BMW did with the MINI in 2001.

I don't know if they can do it, primarily because there is more bad "Fiat" memory in the U.S. than there was "Mini" memories back in the early 2000's due to the fact that so few people in the U.S. actually owned an original Mini. Put another way, there's a bigger bank of bad will towards Fiat than there was towards Mini - deserved or not.

The new Fiat 500 will flop miserably at the first hint of unreliability or crankiness. If they can build a quality car and trade on the aforementioned positives, people just might forget the past and they'd have a hit on their hands.

Just like BMW did with MINI in 2001.


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I think around here everyone knows that the Mini had it's issues, as did most cars of the time. But for some reason the Mini retains a certain mystique that makes you smile (as opposed to frown) as you consider those quirks. One of the Fiat's "quirks" which I never got used to was the puzzling horizontal orientation of the steering wheel. Almost bus-like. I think Alfa had this same orientation and I just never did get that and wonder if those ergonomics have been changed in their current products.

 

you already gave some of your money to them. (bail out)

 

Has to do with the way Italians hold the steering wheel. I prefer it myself.

As for ergonomics the pot should not call the kettle black as the R56 is the worst example of ergonomics on the market today. The worst, today !

 

Just like the classic mini


It was a by product on all the little cars of the era, it goes with the short wheelbase, upright seating, maximizing interior space, and being designed for more 'civil' (putt putt) driving. Sportier cars, like the Alfa's, had the more vertical steering wheels. The classic mini, the cinquecento, & the beetle, were never intended to become icons of motorsports. Small & lightweight just turned out to be the right ingredients for fun, same holds true today. The new Fiat/Abarth's around 400lbs lighter than the new Mini Abarth is basically the Fiat version of John Cooper Works.

nice little review from an American perspective.
http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...t_drive_review

 

That is some fancy Mini!!

I never saw one like that "back in the old days". Later ones were much more luxurious than the spartan '60's models (they needed to be!). Mine was a '70 or '71 (hard to remember, they were all pretty much the same).

Here's what mine looked like:



Steering wheel on the other side, of course...
Very plain and business-like.
This is where the central-speedo-and-controls idea in the new MINI's came from. Two switches - one for headlights, one for wipers. Two ***** - one is the choke, the other controls the heat. The thing hanging below the controls is the heater - an option!! No radio, of course.

But I agree with your point. I forgot about the bus-like steering, especialy on the Italian Fiats (even many of the the Alfas and Lancias etc). The Mini certainly fell into that category too. Plus, the Italian cars seemed to have the pedals too close and the steering wheel too far away - perfect for that "ape-like" short legged and long-armed driver. The Mini was better, but still odd, and not very relaxing on a long highway run.

But they weren't really made for that, anyway.


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That's a '98 mini, that's for sale in the marketplace section, I scooped the picture from
...
and I resemble that last bit

 

ouch im glad im not a breeder.
my kids wont have to foot that bill.

 

good answer

 

only understood a couple words (german ? dutch ? tv show)

and a quick take-off clip

Sounds like it's got gobs of character, like an R53

 

I'm not worrying about BMW/MINI. FIAT will have a huge hill to climb in order to make it over here, and I think Chrysler picked a bad model to start with. Remember how BMW had to redesign the MINI in order to meet US regulations? FIAT will have to do it, too. Does the 500 even have bumpers? They will also have to overcome the Fix It Again Tony memories. Full disclosure--I had 2 back in the day. I bought one new and one used. I don't remember a lot of maintenance headaches (then again, that was 30 years ago), but I DO remember the rust on the new one that showed up in about 9 months.

As for safety, take a look at these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNaVq...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4Tmk-uufGw

Yeah, I know about the small car vs big car thing, but can you imagine what the American car buyer will think? And while the European buyer is using the 500 for much shorter drives*, and probably in urban areas at that, I have a hard time believing they'll cross the corn fields of the midwest, or the vast...nothing...of the southwest. California? Maybe.

Then again, maybe it will stimulate sales for GM.

*It's only 900 miles from Rome to Paris, for example, less than a third of the distance from NYC to LA. The European is much more likely to take a train or plane than to drive a Fiat 500, too. Our country is just too spread out, and isn't nearly as population-intensive--Europe has nearly 3 times our population!

 

My dad bought a Fiat 124 back in the 1970's. It wasn't a bad car, but nor was it overly reliable. They had real rust problems, too, I remember Fiat issuing a recall of the cars for excessive rusting.

It's probably the car that got me started liking smaller, sporty cars. I never drove it myself, but it had a neat interior and it moved pretty well, when it was working.

 

If you mean the redesigned body of the 2 Gen. MINI, I thought that was for a new European standard designed to protect pedestrians. They seem to have a lot of those in Europe.

 

No, I mean from Mini to MINI.

 

As I started reading the first pages of this thread I notice a slight error. The designer of the new Fiat 500 is Roberto Giolito, not Frank Stephenson. Mr. Giolito is head of design for Fiat cars.

 

Back to the topic of redesigning the Mini: I didn't realize what sort of car the original Mini was until I started hanging out with the local Mini club. Wow, that's an amazingly dated design. External body seams, much smaller than I remembered, and no space for crumple zones. I know there are people, particularly in Britain, who lament the passing of the original Mini, but I'm amazed that the design lasted as long as it did.

I've also been reading a lot of 10-year-old Mini magazines. They have plenty of articles about how poorly Rover was building the cars during the last few years of production. They knew production would end soon, so they didn't have the motivation to properly support the production line. For instance: Rover refused to spend money on proper sets of crankshaft shims. That forced the production line to use whatever shims they had when assembling the engines. This resulted in almost all late production engines having bad shaft clearances, which caused increased wear and poor engine reliability.

Again, it's amazing the Mini lasted as long as it did.

 

Well, the Abarth would definitley be a direct competitor to MINI if they did release it and if its already running in Europe(which I'm guessing it is) BUT what I really want to know is........ WHO IS THE CHICK AT THE END OF THE VIDEO?!

 

I'm telling ya'--bumper standards alone would ground the 500.

 

I don't know why but this car reminds me of "Hello Kitty"...

and "Hello Kitty" IS pretty popular!





Sorry... a little late to the show... but I have thought this since I first saw this thread started.

I actually prefer the "Classic" Fiat! I wish MINI and Fiat would redo the "rear" to look more "Classic".

 

So, a big market among pre-teen girls. Fiat will need to lobby for reducing the driving age to seven.

 

If they offer "Jonas Brothers" or "Hannah Montana" Editions, they will be GOLDEN!