How Fiat repeatedly watered down the design of design icons
Of course, opinions can be divided on the beauty of some Fiat designs from the seventies and eighties, but some of these cars had a very individualistic look and stood out from the crowd. Time and again, however, the Fiat designers managed to turn the special car into an ordinary car, replacing uniqueness with "mainstream". What may have made sense from a sales point of view at the time now seems like a gaffe from a historian's and collector's point of view.
Let's take three examples:
The first Fiat Ritmo looked as if it had been cast from a single mold, even the door openers were subordinate to the circular design, the headlights peered cheerfully out into the world, the bumpers were raised high and even the rims looked individualistic. And the icing on the cake was the asymmetrical radiator grille and the intake for the heating and ventilation system on the hood.
Almost all of these special features fell victim to the facelift. From then on, the Ritmo had a normal radiator grille, conventional (plastic) bumpers and standard wheels. Even the door openers had to make way for standard parts at some point.
It was no different with the Fiat Panda, with which Giorgetto Giugiaro had certainly created a masterpiece of practicality.
Here, too, the asymmetrical radiator grille was removed during the facelift exercises and the funny garden chairs and other unique features inside and out also had to disappear over the years.
And it happened again with the Fiat Multipla. Naturally, the design of the early Multipla was off-putting and many people looked horrified when they first saw the car.
But what remained after the redesign seemed so arbitrary that the whole cult imploded. What a pity! If Citroën had maltreated the design of the Ente in this way over the years, it would be much less sought after today, especially in the more recent model years.
But, decide for yourself. Leave your comments! What do you like better, what do you think will age better? What will classic car collectors of the future want to have in their collection?
