NF500 / new fiat 500

The award-winning Fiat 500, which has received countless honours this year, adds an extra important one this weekend – its first birthday celebrations.

Although it only arrived in the UK in January this year, the popular supermini was first launched in Italy on 4 July 2007, and the Fiat Group is celebrating its anniversary with a series of bold, elaborate parties across the world, including the UK.

The date of this landmark occasion is especially significant as last year’s Italian launch of the car was exactly 50 years after the original introduction of Dante Giacosa’s classic post-war 500.

The UK party, hosted by TV presenter Alex Zane, is called the Fiat 500 PicNic and takes place at Alexandra Park, North London. It’s designed to be a traditional British summer outdoor gathering, but with a special 500 twist.

With invitations extended to more than 5,000 specially-invited Fiat 500 drivers and potential owners, this Saturday’s (5 July) PicNic initiative, which was conceived to share the passion and emotion of the huge Fiat 500 community, will feature live music, delicious Italian food and drink, outdoor games, big-screen sports coverage and special ‘chill-out’ zones for participants.

The London event is part of a series of global parties celebrating the hugely successful first year of Fiat’s iconic city car. Athens, Budapest, Copenhagen, London, Milan, Munich, Palermo, Paris, Rome, Rotterdam, Tokyo, Valencia, Hel, Liège, Zurich, and Cape Town are the chosen cities that, either in parks or on beaches, will welcome thousands of people brought together by the new car.

Music, art, and fun are the ingredients which will guarantee a successful event involving new Fiat 500 owners and those who are still waiting to get one (222,000 have been ordered so far).

This is a global initiative that we in Britain are delighted to be involved in,

says Andrew Humberstone, managing director, Fiat Group Automobiles UK.

It is everything that the new Fiat 500 stands for – fun, excitement, freedom and the knack of bringing people together in a great atmosphere – and I am sure the event will be a great success.

The London party will feature four special themed zones – Energy, Entertainment, Chill and Children. The Energy Zone offers outdoor games, fun races and a volleyball competition, while in Entertainment there will be live music, jugglers, a giant screen and Fiat 500 interactive car configurators to try.

The Chill Zone is designed for relaxation with Tai Chi, head massages and hammocks all available, and the Children’s Zone will feature face painting, street theatre and games.

Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has been quoted by Forbes as confirming orders for the new Fiat 500 have exceeded 204,000 vehicles. He also is quoted as saying there are no plans to further increase production beyond the current 190,000 vehicles per year output, or to introduce a second production site.

As an aside, Mr Marchionne also reaffirmed that the convertible Fiat 500 is heading for production in 2009.

…and it’s going to be a soft top too!

That’s according to a report published today in Just-Auto.com.

Roberto Giolito, styling director for the Fiat brand, reportedly informed a just-auto reporter that the convertible variant of the new Fiat 500 was definitely going to be produced and that the design would be simple, affordable and “aimed at bringing maximum customer enjoyment”.

The Fiat 500 Convertible will sport a traditional fabric roof, as opposed to joining the hordes of overly fussy and in our opinion downright ugly “coupe convertibles” which seem to have flooded the convertible market over the past few years.

Fiat are confident that progresses in the technology of fabric roofs means a space-saving fabric folding roof can offer excellent insulation against the elements and exterior noise. We certainly welcome this decision and cant wait to see what the designers come up with.

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]

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.

In January Fiat UK Managing Director Andrew Humberstone made a pledge that he would be taking a hands on approach to bringing up the standard and reputation of the UK Fiat dealership network. Well, if a survey of around 32,000 UK motorists recently published by magazine Auto Express is anything to go by, he’s going to have his work cut out.

The Driver Power Dealer Survey canvassed the car buying public’s opinions on a range of criterea to paint a balanced picture of people’s overall dealership experience, and Fiat came a lowly 29 out of 30 overall.

This probably comes as perplexing, and certainly challenging news for new Fiat Group UK Sales Director Andrew Sproston, who took up his new position at the company this past Monday.

The broken down results show Fiat dealers as coming in the following positions:

• 20th for Value for money
• 29th for Standard of Workmanship
• 30th for Technical knowledge
• 30th for helpfulness and attitude
• 29th for Communication
• 30th Cleanliness and Atmosphere

It appears to us at NF500 that only the 20th place for “Value for money” saved Fiat’s dealerships from receiving the wooden spoon in this particular survey.

The Fiat 500, as the European wide “500% Fiat” marketing campaign reminds us all, is indented to be the embodiment of a completely fresh and revitalised Fiat. If these results really are anything to go by, along with some recent worrying reports from Fiat 500 owners and would-be owners on the new Fiat 500 forums, Fiat could do with taking a serious look at the dealership network and find out what they can do to improve their reputation “on the street”. If customers are being treated well by dealerships, word gets around, no matter how slick and polished your promotional work may be.

Credit to James on the forums for pointing this one out to us.