NF500 / poland

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]

Good news for those waiting for a diesel engine new Fiat 500 to arrive, production is about to restart. Although some cars appear to have made it to dealers which will need work to rectify this issue, the numbers affected seem miniscule, and delays are expected to be minimal, regardless of your Fiat 500 order status.

Full Fiat group press release follows:

The anomalies related to an externally-supplied component of the 1.3 Multijet engine have been resolved and on Saturday production of the engines resumed in the Bielsko Biala plant in Poland.

Production of cars that mount this engine will regularly resume within Tuesday February 26.

The suspension of production activities involved certain production lines of the Mirafiori, Melfi, Termini Imerese, Tychy and Bursa plants, where models equipped with 1.3 Multijet engines are produced. All these plants will resume normal activity within February 27.

The Company made every possible effort to speed up controls and adaptations that became necessary as well as to reduce delays in delivery to customers to the minimum.

Although Fiat is aware that this suspension of production, which has now been resolved, will have repercussions on its delivery volumes for the month of February, it nonetheless decided to adopt an uncompromising and rigorous approach so as to guarantee the highest levels of product quality to its customers.
Despite the cost that these measures will have, the Group confirms its targets for 2008.

The Warsaw Business Journal has a report on the launch of the new Fiat 500 in Poland. That’s right, Fiat’s new baby has finally been released in the country where it is produced.

Despite being the country to produce the 500 Fiat are placing modest expectations on the uptake of the new car in Poland, with a spokesperson quoted as expecting sales of around 3,000 vehicles a year. Considering orders had reached around 105,000 cars by the end of November 2007 following launch the same summer, you can see just how conservative that estimate is.

The new Fiat 500 will be the first of Fiat’s premium models to go on sale in Poland, but with prices starting at less than the equivalent of £7,000 (or €9,700) Fiat in Poland are hopeful of making inroads in the lower end of the luxury market.

The orange Fiat 500 you see here has taken on quite a journey, after traveling through China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and finally Italy to appear at the 2007 Bologna Motor Show.

But that was just the return leg of an incredible adventure which saw the 1.3 multijet turbo diesel Fiat 500 cover over 16,000 km to reach Beijing in the first place, and the return leg was completed in less than a month! The Overland Challenge saw the Fiat 500 accompany a vintage 1907 Itala, recreating (in reverse) the 100th anniversary of its victory in the 1907 Beijing to Paris race. Then Rocco Errico and Beppe Tenti decided that wasn’t enough, and drove all the way back to Italy again.

You can read more about the big adventure on this very website, the Parigi-Pechino website and the official blog of the Fiat 500 team on the Fiat 500 website.

Reuters is reporting that workers in Poland, where Fiat is building the new version of the Cinquecento model, plan to call a global strike if they do not get a pay raise, according to a report in Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita on Friday. Workers at the Tychy plant have asked Fiat to raise their minimum monthly wage to 2,800 zlotys ($1,008) from 1,435 zlotys, saying they had the support of workers in Italy and Brazil for a one-day global strike if needed.

If we work so well and are able to work even better and raise our productivity, then we have to get more money,

said Rajmund Pollak, vice president of the Solidarity union in Tychy.

The union has given Fiat until July 13 to respond.

At a news conference on Thursday, Fiat Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne responded to a question on wages from a Polish reporter by saying workers’ demands would be a issue that the auto industry as a whole would have to confront.

At 1335 GMT, Fiat shares were up 3 percent at 23.26 euros, after earlier reaching their highest level since September 2001 at 23.41 euros.