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Michael Taylor19 Feb 2014
NEWS

Fiat 500 overhaul

It's still selling strongly, so what's Fiat thinking to replace the irreplaceable?
An all-new model will replace the dominant chic car of its era, the Fiat 500, in 2016, complete with fully digital dash technology and new, more efficient powertrain technology.
Fiat insiders insist the rebirthed cult car will retain its successful retro styling theme, though the look will be more streamlined but still give a recognizable link to the original 1957 Cinquecento. In a lesson taken from BMW’s modern adventures with MINI, it will take a softly-softly approach to the exterior design but attack everything beneath the skin with fresh technology.
The most obvious internal change will be the adoption of a fully digital, TFT-screen instrument cluster, which Fiat sources say will be previewed in the mildly face lifted 500 Cult next month.
It has worked so well that the car led the European A-segment in its first full year in 2008 and it delivered exactly the same 13.9 percent share of the market share again last year, nearly seven years after its launch. In fact, so dominant is Fiat in the city-car stakes that its 160,015 sales last year edged the Panda, on which the 500 is based, into second place. It outsold the Volkswagen Up! by 30,000 cars and the Opel Adam by more than 110,000 cars.
The small car, based around an updated version of the everyman Panda architecture, has gained an unlikely toehold in the United States and its replacement is likely to grow longer and wider to further establish its presence there.
While that runs the risk of alienating some Europeans, with their ancient inner-city streets providing a haven for small cars, it will give the rest of the world a larger interior while retaining the current proportions.
It will be part of a significant overhaul of the interior, including the seat designs, the buttons, the dash materials and the rear seat and cargo packaging, without walking away from the retro theme that has worked so well for the current 500. It will almost do away with buttons altogether, keeping them only for the gearshift on the semi-automatic transmission and the dual-dry clutch transmissions.
Instead, almost all of the next 500’s in-car functions will be managed by a large touchscreen, almost the size of an iPad, mounted high in the middle of the dashboard and eradicating air conditioning, audio, navigation and chassis management controls.
It is expected to retain the full-width, body-coloured dash design that harked back so successfully to an earlier era and will now give the rear-seat occupants some well-earned legroom.
Externally, it will take its cue from the 500L sort-of SUV by pinning the design theme on oversized headlights and tail lights, with the front end dominated by a pair of oval lights with a circular LED ring.
It will only be sold as a three-door hatch, unlike MINI, with an upcoming five-door hatch based around the classic three-door shape. That doesn’t mean there isn’t more space and doors coming for small Fiats, though.
There will be a five-door hatch that carries a lot of 500 styling signatures (without much of its engineering) launched next year to replace the unloved Punto Evo and a soft-road 500X will be available later in 2015 as well.
The next 500 is unlikely to move into brave new worlds for its powertrains, with Fiat just announcing new 88kW versions of both its 1.6-litre MultiJet II diesel and its 1.4-litre turbo petrol motor, both of which have slotted beneath the 500L’s bonnet.
It will also deliver a sub-90 gram version of the 1.3-litre MultiJet II diesel engine and it will stick with the just-fiddled TwinAir two-cylinder petrol engine.
Life is likely to be harder for the next 500, though, with Volkswagen determined to convince the public of the benefits of the Up!, plus Hyundai launching its i10, Peugeot showing its three-cylinder 108, Citroen the C1 and Toyota the Aygo. 
The most ironic rival of all is the Renault Twingo. Where Fiat has taken a rear-engined icon and made a modern-day front-engined version, Renault has gone the other way, moving the Twingo’s engine to the rear of the car and making it rear-wheel drive.

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Written byMichael Taylor
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