Monday,
July 09, 2007
Fiat "500" Got Italians UP off
Scooters, Now Getting Swedes DOWN out of Guzzlers
The
ANNOTICO Report
The
Fiat "500" got Italians off their Scooters, and into
cars in 1947, and sold 500,000 of them, and 30 years after production
stopped, 10% are still on the road.
The
reintroduction of the new Fiat "500' may very well be successful again,
but this time, because it will be accomplishing getting people out of
their big non-green cars, and the Scandanavians
seem to be a particularly good target market.
Ironic,
formerly, Fiat was moving prospects UP, now their moving prospects
DOWN, with basically the same car.!!!
New
look for 50-year-old 500
The iconic
predecessor of the new machine did more than any other car to get Italians off
their Vespas and behind the wheel.
When it was
introduced in 1957, the Fiat 500 cost 450,000 lire - the equivalent today of
#150.
The price of the
new model has not yet been released but reports have estimated it to be between
#7,000 and #10,000.
Fiat aims to sell
50,000 by the end of the year, and already has 25,000 dealer orders.
The car was
designed by Frank Stephenson, famous for the successful redesign of the Mini.
He has retained
the iconic shape of the original, but added some modern twists.
Customers will be
able to pick out designs to personalise the body,
including paintings of flowers or flames.
Fiat's Chief Executive
Officer Sergio Marchionne hopes the new design will
help the company build on its recent return to profitability.
He told
"I want Fiat
to become the Apple of automobiles. And the 500 will be our iPod,"
he said.
Of the five
million original 500s, more than 500,000 are still on the road, some 30 years
after production was halted.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30400-1273801,00.html
off
Big Cars
Big Saab and
Volvo station wagons could be going out of fashion in their homeland of
The IHT reckons the popularity to date of big Saabs
and Volvos means that
Olle Maberg,
a retired executive from Volvo who drives a large Volvo 4x4 admits to the IHT:
"As global warming becomes more evident it will get more and more
embarrassing to drive around in a big and heavy car like this."
Perhaps the
Swedes could turn to the tiny Fiat 500. The Times
reports that the "iconic" Cinquecento is being relaunched
by the
It says the old
Fiat 500 "symbolises for many Italians the
postwar years of economic boom and the dolce vita." At the launch of the
new model, which was attended by the prime minister,
Romano Prodi, Fiat claimed: "The new Fiat 500
will be the iPod of cars."
The Guardian says
the new model is "sleeker" but slightly bigger than the old one.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/
2007/07/05/green_swedes_turn_off_big_cars.html
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