Those were the days! Festa Fiat
03/08/2021
Of course we miss parties, folk festivals and major events in times of Corona, but we don't want to write about that here, because an advertisement from 1997 caught our attention. And then it became clear. When we look at this double-sided advertisement today, we miss the variety and the niche policy that Fiat was still pursuing almost 25 years ago .
In 1997, there was a Fiat Punto Cabriolet, the open-top Fiat Barchetta and the Fiat Coupé designed by Chris Bangle with a rich-sounding five-cylinder turbo engine. Three fun cars that you could dream of and that were much more than just a means of transportation.
And today, almost all models sold by Fiat are called 500, apart from the Panda and Neo-Tipo, which are still on sale. The 124 Spider, taken over from Mazda, has already been abandoned in Turin and the modern motorist obviously no longer needs a real coupé. Yet the Fiat Coupé in particular had a pretty impressive gallery of ancestors with the 124 Coupé, the 2300 S as a Coupé or the Coupé versions of the Fiat 1500 Spider, not forgetting the Fiat 850 Sport Coupé and the Fiat 128 3 Porte.
Is it down to customers who simply no longer want to buy cars with a tight cut and sporty look, or is it down to quarterly pressure and tough cost calculations?
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