Fiats new roadster

T

tempra33

Low Mileage
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Concept based on nuevo 500. Body in alu. About 1 tonne. 1.4 turbo.
Production feasible within 2 years acccording to UK mag Auto Express.

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressnews/233329/abarth_coupe_exclusive_pictures.html

I want it - even with front drivetrain.
 
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Neat!

Sort of a Honda del Sol with street cred:excited:

Wish it looked a bit less like and Audi-but I want one too:)
 
Caveat Chassis

If they'd made it mid-engined rear wheel drive, they would have had something to be proud of. Where is this unwritten rule that small cars have to be front wheel drive?

I just don't see how that would've been so hard to do! Where are people that actually design cool cars??!! Fiat did it with the X, take a 128's front wheel drive mechanicals and just move them to the back, surely they could do that again.

It seems too like their pimping the name Abarth a little heavy for car that's so light
in the A$$.

The chassis is too common, it's front wheel drive, shared now with the Fiat 500, the Abarth version of the 500, and the, gulp, Ford KA. That stifles it right there. I'd take another late model garage queen FI X/19 and I'd never look back and have at least ten grand to keep in the bank.
 
Looks like a photoshop to me

Anyone have a larger version of the pic? Look at the area where the young lady and the car overlap, looks odd. Maybe it's just my eyes or my crappy old monitor.
 
Don't hold back Duane!

I take it you are unimpressed:excited::)?

I think manufacturers have a couple of reasons for not repeating the X experiment. First it would have to be a bespoke platform almost completely-yes, the powertrain would swap but everything else is new. In this way the X was quite a gamble for Fiat (one that paid off)
Second, I suspect there is some concerns on the product liablitiy front-for all the advantages that mid-engine cars have they can, in the wrong hands, become spinners. Heck, even a front drive that is short in the wheelbase and setup to really scoot can spin-remember the law suits in Europe over the lift off oversteer on the Audi TT that stuck some drivers in the hedgerows? Turned out that the TT wasn't really all that unstable(it was the drivers who were) but they went back and had to tweak nearly all the lift off neutrality out of the chassis. Mid engine cars are generally pitched at the performance drivers and built in pretty limited numbers and tend top be very expensive but if you got a bunch of relatively cheap and light and fragile ones in the hands of too many then the liability starts to mount up.
All that said I can only share your disappointment.
On the other hand there is the occasional front driver that is fanatastic-the Lotus Elan of the 1990s specifically-recognized as one of Lotus' best ever and certainly the best handling front drive platform around.
 
JimD said:
Anyone have a larger version of the pic? Look at the area where the young lady and the car overlap, looks odd. Maybe it's just my eyes or my crappy old monitor.
Click to expand...

Might be PS, see link to mag for other photos which looks slightly different from B-post.

Front wheel drive platforms are the rule laid out by the economics. However they can be tuned to act with oversteer, The Barchetta feels very much like a rearwheel drive on the dry. It´s all in the chassie balance, wheel angles and bushing setup.

However, im happy the Fiat people is thinking about building light, nippy, small roadsters again. To quote the late Colin Chapman; " Before all - add lightness".
 
Front engine, front wheel drive

Back when the X1/99 thing happened what the guys at Fiat told me was that they'd love (in terms of thinking it's a cool idea) to do a new mid engine sports car like a "new X" but the primary reason they wouldn't is because they couldn't afford the development cost of a new mid-engine platform to put it on, for the relatively small return (or in fact a net loss) that another "budget" mid-engine sports car might bring.

The quote I was given was "a billion ($) at least" (may have been hyperbole but astronomical was their point in any case) to create a suitable mid-engine platform from scratch, which was money Fiat just did not have to p*ss away at that sort of project whether they might like to (idealistically, not fiscally) or not. This was how it was explained to me why the X1/99, or really ANY "spiritual successor" (hmm) to the X to Fiat would have to be front engine front wheel drive, because those are the only 'budget' platforms they've already got (no guys Ferraris don't count)... Whether this is still the case today I don't know but I suspect it probably is... unless that Elise platform thing ever happens... (?)
 
FWD?

That is what FIAT management wanted for the X1/9 since the very beginning. They fought hard against the Bertone mid-engine design. Now they have a string of FWD two seaters. Having owned many FWD cars over the years, they are not for me as a sports car. Don't get me wrong, as one of my daily drivers is a FWD car that I strongly perfer. It is just not going to have the chassis dynamics as a mid-engine chassis as a FUN car. Indeed the Lotus Elan from the 90's was an excellent FWD chassis, so was the Lancia Fulvia. Even so, they still have a FWD personality at the limits. Keep in mind, FIAT has an agreement with Lotus to use the new Elise chassis for ???? If this is what became of the Lotus / FIAT joint venture, it would be a disappointment.
 
Not sure...

With regards to the X1/9, I'm not sure what segment of Fiat management you are referring to that would have "fought hard against" the Bertone mid-engine design. What evidence is there of this?

Mid-engine cars were clearly established as THE platform for sports cars. The Lambo Miura was the super car of super cars and Ferrari only had the front engined, albeit a wonderful car, 365 GTB/4 to show for it until Enzo finally okay'd the Dino, but not with a Ferrari badge. Everyone that was anyone was clamoring to get a mid-engined car on the street!

Montabone was the Fiat director of development at the time the X1/9 was developed and released, and of course Gianni Agnelli was the President of Fiat, they were both enthusiastic supporters of the X, which is probably the only reason it made it in the first place. They did chide Gandini and Bertone that they 'just wanted to make a poor man's Miura' but they all understood what could potentially happen. It was basically a mid-engined sports car for the gas crisis as the big GT manufacturers were about to take in on the chin, which they surely did. Maserati would be subsidized heavily by the Italian government, Ferrucio Lamborghini would not even own Lamborghini S.p.A by the time the X1/9 was released, and Ferrari sold 40% of his company to Fiat. Many other coach builders and marques went away forever. Those were bad times.

Apparently these are even worse times as no one, and I mean no one, is truly being creative and adventurous with car design. No one will cross the street unless somebody else says they'll assume the risk. But it's more likely the story that things are so profit driven that the whole atmosphere can never flourish as it once did. Passion, soul, unique designs, those things mean nothing except for the publicists who use them as a punch line.

But I've never read, or heard, in any place or setting that there was a segment of the Fiat management that 'fought hard against' either the X1/9 or a mid-engined layout. Where is this coming from?
 
it's probably true

Anecdotally anyway, there were (and still are) two "camps" of upper management at Fiat, the design & marketing guys (who generally think the X and any similar mid engine sports cars are really really cool and would probably do backflips to create something like that again) and then the finance guys (who generally regard such concepts as folly or a losing proposition with extremely high development cost relative to 'normal' platforms and a pretty low opportunity for profit/return, if not a total loss-maker), so what happens any time something really cool (but really expensive to develop or especially possibly only marketable as a 'niche' car in the lineup) gets all kinds of resistance from the bean counters.

In the case of the X I do think they did lose money on every car sold but at the time (as mentioned) the car had a handful of support in very high places, and also, they were looking at it as a bit of a "loss leader" (I'm guessing), meaning, it was worth having a low-buck-mini-exotic like the X in the showrooms because it would draw more people in to look, who may then end up buying a 124 or a 128 or a Strada or whatever else. Kind of like when you go to the grocery store and they're selling milk for half price, they're losing money on every milk, but, hoping that got you in the store you'll maybe buy something else (that has a better profit margin) while you're there.. That's the theory as I understand it anyway...

I was told a story by the guys I spoke with at Fiat, during the X1/99 thing, a tale about the Lancia Fulvia concept that was out a few years ago and how there was this epic battle inside Fiat about whether to bring it to production, market/enthusiast feedback was overwhelmingly strong in favor of Fiat producing it, it had huge support from the enthusiast types in the company in design and marketing etc, but the bean counters killed it dead. I was told how "we tried EVERYTHING" to make that car producable, down to using every conceivable off the shelf part from the Barchetta they could possibly incorporate to reduce costs, and still, could never get it low enough for finance to accept it as a business case with any prayer of significant "ROI" in light of Fiat's budget at the time. They told me "many people at Fiat cried the day the Fulvia concept died"...

So, bottom line, just like any other big business, the business of making cars at Fiat has inside it the enthusiasts who think like us "what a great car that would be, why aren't we building that??" and the finance guys who say "you gotta be kidding, you know how much thats going to cost? And how many we can sell at $X, ROI doesn't work, it's not worth it"... Unfortunately when you're in a company that does not have bottomless resources the bean counters usually win...
 
It's just a guess

I believe this is just the magazine's retouched (VW?) image showing their idea of what a new Abarth "might" look like. They needed a photo(s) to generate attention and give the impression that they got a "scoop".

It is not from Fiat.
 
Now that is what I'm talking about!

Thank you JaMeS! Now THAT to my eye looks at least somewhat more like a worthy X successor...

spiderabarth01jf3.jpg


Too bad it's probably not what they'll do :(

By the way anyone notice on that other link the images of the car (which btw match the first pic on this thread) are labeled "IED"?? - the same design school whose students brought us the X1/99... :hmm:

abarthssied1iy6.jpg
 
I just mean...

... at least it looks angular, has a forward-leaning targa bar, a proper side vent, etc, as opposed to the other various alternatives that are so round and smooth or otherwise "not wedgey" that I can't imagine how I could ever draw any 'spiritual'(?) connection to the X... not even mentioning front engine :sigh:

I don't mean to say I think it looks "just right" for my view (my vision of an updated X would be more of a retro-modern take on the original than anything Fiat would likely ever realistically consider...) just saying, at this point, I'd take it over the rounder ones ;)
 
I agree with MAC

This is about as good as its gonna get. There will never be a new X we would really like. Things have changed. After driving a Lotus last Summer, I knew firsthand this is what a next generation X was going to be like.
The original X was designed in the 60's. 40 years ago, there is no way a new one is gonna be what we have in our driveway. Look at the newer Beetle. Its nothing like the 67 I owned. They are both great in their own way.
When a new version comes out, you'll be proud to get one. Once you push the pedal, all the power the original lacked, will be there. Turbo charged, Yeahhhh!
Hey, its not a hatchback, doesn't have goofy looks, its what a modern X would be.
I wish it were mid engined, but look at the reat trunk space you'll have.
I want it.


JaMeS ........VRrrrrooooooOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!
 
Well....

Seems like there's alot of huffing and puffing going on here to somehow defend or justify this little car's existence. No...there will be never be another X and I, for one, was never once nor ever will be so unrealistic as to think that. It's a little silly to think that the only reason I or any one else is criticizing this car is because it's not 'exactly' like an X. I don't like it for just exactly what it is, or has yet to be, or what it is lacking if it's being pimped as this big of a deal, again, nothing to do with an X. Fiat could make a modern X if they wanted to, who are we kidding? They could even get Gandini to design it....he's still an active designer. Bertone still builds cars. They still produce the engine to which our 1.5 SOHC is ancestor. It they wanted to, they could.

The whole bean counter argument may be true but it's not the whole story. Fiat, Pininfarina, Bertone, Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Lancia were the masters of the auto universe way back when and they produced cars out of pure passion, today they are produced out of pure profit motive. It is a lack of creativity and passion in the manufacturers, engineers, and designers THEMSELVES that results in financially prohibitive conclusions to purist and passionative automotive making questons.....not the other way around. Do you think that cars were any cheaper to build back then? Don't fool yourself! Yes, labor was cheaper, but the labor involved in fabrication and assembly was exponentially greater in terms of time and necessary skill whereas today mechanical automation does most of the work and we have unskilled workers who hammer on a hubcap 200 times a day for $60 an hour and then whine about higher pay. It's a human problem, not a financial problem.

If, at this very moment, I wanted to walk out and get what I thought was as close as you could get to a modern X, I'd get a Lotus Elise Exige, which itself is just shy of super car performance. For less money, I'd get the Toyota MR2 Spider of 02 or above years. For something mid-engined Italian yet vastly superior, I'd get a Ferrari F355. If money was no object, I'd get a Ferrari F430 Scuderia, which is in the upper echelons of the sports car world.

But I would never be so naive as to think that some as of yet unproduced, melted candy bar, modern, pimped with Abarth stickers, front wheel drive, mechanical excresence, is a modern X1/9. Nor do I think anyone else here would. Most of us already have X1/9's and like them just fine, or, much better than most anything else out there because of what it is.
 
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