Olivier François has a problem. He’s been nursing, nurturing and nibbling away at an idea he had several years ago – a rather good idea – and although that thought has been turned into a three-dimensional object for us all to see, he doesn’t know when it should be turned into something that all of us might buy.
François is chief marketing officer at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and head of the Fiat brand. His idea is how to set about replacing the Fiat Panda, Fiat’s most charmingly basic model, with a car that will have legs for a greener 21st century.
Fiat Centoventi
One look at the Centoventi, Fiat’s concept car celebration of its 120th anniversary, tells you that François and his team have been mulling a lot more than a straightforward replacement for the third-generation Panda. The car you see here would be offered with only one main paint colour – pale grey – in its most basic form and shorn of much equipment. There would be multiple optional add-ons to configure the interior, dashboard and roof, as well as the more fundamental choice of an all-electric drivetrain. More specifically, the electric version would be an affordable battery model, coming as standard with a range of no more than 62 miles. You might well consider this unacceptably limiting, even for an urban runabout. In which case, you can order another 62 miles’ worth of add-on battery pack, by buying, leasing or even renting it, and a couple of packs beyond that, too.
In fact, the Centoventi, and by implication the next Panda, could be all about the add-ons. Among the cornucopia of ideas that it carries is a one-model offering, to which you can add as many or as few options as you like, either when you buy, or after you’ve bought. One benefit of the single-model approach, says François, is that there’s only one version of the car’s wiring loom, complete with all the plug-and-play possibilities needed for post-sale upgrades and add-ons.
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New engines needed first
ive owned a number of Fiats over the years, an original Panda, a 2008 ‘new’ Panda and a 2010 Punto. I’ve also experienced a lot of them when holidaying throughout Europe where they still seem to clog up the rental car parks in basic form. What I will say is this, they desperately need to upgrade the engines - they’ve all been pretty dreadful, noisy, slow and gutless. We rented a Punto last week in Madeira, a new car with only 2k miles on the clock and it was absolutely dreadful - at some points, we actually couldn’t get up some admittedly steep hills even in first gear! We’ve never had a problem in the same location with other city cars - Mitsubishi’s Mirage and the odd Hyundai i10 or two. I was shocked at how bad the engines are in current Fiats. I’m all for an electric car future when the technology is reliable but until then, I’d not consider another Fiat until they bring their ageing engine line up to a standard that is able to actually power the car they install them in.
Meantime, most of the US Fiat
Meantime, most of the US Fiat range is due for the chop, so it's no small matter to get the looks right.
The Centoventi is a nice idea, but the blobular styling needs a revise before it can be a desirable object.
The Toenail will be sh*te cos
The Toenail will be sh*te cos its based on a non Alfa platform, just a few years ago this sort of thing was supposed to stop, thats why the Giulia's Georgio platform was developed, just 3 years later that apparently brilliant (and expensively developed) platform is to be sidelined, total madness, Marchione will be spinning in his grave and we all know that Autocar will drive the Tonail when its released and say its not that good, clearly a cut down Giulia platform should be used.