NF500

According to a report in La Republica today, a new law which is set to come into force next July will prevent newly qualified Italian drivers from taking the wheel in “high powered vehicles”.

“Sounds perfectly reasonable” I hear you cry. That may be so, however those behind the legislation decided to use that measure of performance muched bragged about by Abarth owners over history of BHP/tonne. In this case the performance limit is due to be set at 67 bhp/tonne. This figure, which was presumably arrived at after much careful consideration, means high powered tarmac munching speed machines such as the Fiat 500, Toyota Aygo and MINI One will be off limits for the first year of driving for newly qualified Italian drivers. Perversely, a Land Rover Discovery or Nissan Patrol could still be considered perfectly acceptable transport for novice motorists.

Apparently this isn’t the only drawback of the new legislation, one of the other potential pitfalls being that the kW/Tonne of each vehicle on the roads is not something readily available to Italian traffic police, so quite how this will be enforced is anyone’s guess.

Thanks once again to KevinB for the heads up on this story.

Fiat has revealed another weapon in their onslaught of publicity stunts, this time taking the form of enormous interactive bill-boards placed in the heart of berlin, at the site of Checkpoint Charlie on the corner of Friedrichstraße.

Passers by (or just anyone who reads this and has the ability to do so) can send a text message (to number 84000 password “Fiat 500″), and said message will appear scrolling across a 20 metre metre message strip, as well as appearing like on the official Fiat 500 homepage. We’re assuming they’re monitored for decency prior to being emblazoned on a huge picture of the Fiat 500!

Apparently this latest clever piece of marketing is part of Fiat’s wider strategy to involve Fiat 500 fans from around the world, carrying the rather wordy slogan “500 people’s car, created by the people”.

This interactive “advertising cube” was created by Fiat in partnership with the communication experts Carat Wiesbaden and the agency Magic Touch of Hamburg.

This isn’t the first time the Fiat 500 has benefited from some quirky PR in Berlin, previously they took their smart thinking underground to celebrate Fiat’s victory at the 2008 Car of the Year awards.

Alpine Europe have invested 1000 man hours, and no doubt quite a sum of money into developing their latest show car, based on the new Fiat 500.

The Taifun5 combines some of Alpines latest high-end in car multimedia technology with a custom built interior and MS Design Fiat 500 Cup body kit to achieve some pretty spectacular results.

While the finished article of all the money time and technology invested by Alpine on the Fiat 500 will be to everyone’s tastes is open to debate, but there’s no doubt the transformation, including complete custom dash and seating arrangement, is nothing if not dramatic.

Check out the following photos, and 10 minute video of the design and production process, for details of what Alpine multimedia gear is included in the Taifun5, check the Alpine Europe website.

Special thanks to KevinB who originally posted these images on our New Fiat 500 forums.

The photographs, taken by a super sleuth based in Poland, show the recently revealed Abarth version of the popular Fiat 500 strutting its stuff on the streets among everyday traffic.

While these images in themselves reveal nothing new about the forthcoming hot hatch version of the Fiat 500, it is always nice to see future models mixing it on the street, apparently in the latter stages of development and testing. The only visible disguise here is the clever(?!) covering of the Abarth badges, which may fool some, but it wasn’t fooling Kevin’s spotter, or us for that matter, nice try Fiat.

[Disclaimer: We may have added the NF500.com stickers shown in the windows ourselves]

The Fiat 500 seats offer only a “marginal” level of safety, according to results published by research institute Thatcham this week.

In fact, superminis in general did not come out of the latest study, focusing on whiplash protection, with much to be proud about. Only the Smart ForTwo and Renault Twingo achieved an “acceptable” rating among this category of vehicle.

You can see the detailed results of tests on the Fiat 500 seating at the Tatcham website. It has to be said they don’t make comfortable reading for those concerned about occupant safety, and may come as a surprise to many considering the five star Euro NCAP rating the Fiat 500 has been awarded for overall safety.

There’s been a few posts about this on the new Fiat 500 forums here at NF500, so we thought we’d give one of Fiat’s latest Italian initiatives a little more coverage here too.

The Fiat 500 Pop Up Store is a temporary store devoted entirely to the new Fiat 500, is open now and will remain so until July 31st 2008. So if you’re in the area, you might want to pop buy and check out the Fiat 500 goodies on display.

Apparently the Pop Up store has set its intentions on being much more than a simple car showroom, and will offer free wi-fi to visitors, as well as numerous special events related in some way or another to the Fiat 500, some directly, and some artistically “inspired by” the Fiat 500.

If you reach Milan before August you’ll find the store Located in De Tocqueville No 11.

Consultancy and research company JATO have declared that among the top ten selling vehicle manufacturers in Europe, Fiat Automobiles recorded the lowest average CO2 emissions value for automobiles sold during 2007, setting an impressive benchmark of 137.3 g/km

The full rundown puts Fiat ahead of Peugeot at 141.9 g/km with sister company Citroen coming in at 142.2 g/km. Another French manufacturer, Renault come in fourth place with 146.4 g/km average, followed by Ford at 149.1 g/km. The chasing pack is made up my Vauxhall/Opel, Volkswagen, BMW, and in last palce Mercedes with average CO2 emissions of 188.4 g/km.

The results of this important analysis reward Fiat’s ongoing commitment to finding innovative solutions to reduce levels of polluting emissions and CO2

explained Lorenzo Sistino, managing director of Fiat Automobiles

Fiat’s aim is always to stay closer to people’s real needs and its commitment does not end here. Irrespective of what is decided by the powers-that-be in Europe, our aim is still to achieve the lowest average adjusted level of CO2 emissions for Fiat cars by 2012. Fiat intends to achieve this result by introducing an action plan on engines and transmissions, in addition to the use of the Eco Drive, an innovative application developed with Microsoft that is able – via the USB Port of the versatile Blue&Me system - to analyse motorists’ driving styles, helping them to optimise behaviour in terms of fuel consumption and hence emissions.

While Fiat are very publicly touting their eco-credentials of late, with innovations in the pipeline concerning hybrid drive systems and other combined fuel saving technologies, as recently shown in the Fiat 500 Aria concept, one huge aid in achieving these figures is Fiat’s product portfolio, which leans heavily towards smaller, and therefore almost by default, more frugal and lower emitting cars than many rivals.

Fiat are also working hard to be ready for future regulation ahead of time, for example the Fiat 500 and the Fiat Bravo have already seen the introduction of Euro 5 Ready power units (petrol and diesel) to the range. And by the end of 2009, the majority of engines in the entire Fiat range will be Euro 5 ready. Fiat is also the first manufacturer to develop the Multijet technology that drives all new-generation diesel cars and is a world leader in the field of methane-driven OEM cars (more than 50,000 were sold last year in Italy).

While investing in alternative fuel technology, Fiat is also embarking on a mission to downsize its diesel and petrol engine versions, as demonstrated by the new 1.4 T-Jet and 1.6 Multijet families. The adoption of a new-generation turbocharger, combined with a smaller capacity engine, enables Fiat to achieve performance levels on a par with, or even in excess of higher-capacity power units, but with lower fuel consumption and emissions.