Archive for Fiat

The Fiat Phylla concept city car was developed by design schools IED (Europeo di Design), IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design), and the Centro Richerche Fiat (CRF)’s Advanced Design department.

Phylla is the Greek word for leaf, and pays homage to the leaf’s ability to photosynthesize sunlight into energy, which the Phylla concept has via the use of solar panels on the roof. The 750kg (including a 150kg battery) green concept is built on an aluminium space frame with asymmetrical pillar designs, pretty much like a leaf’s pattern.

The car’s body is only 2995mm long with a 1,980mm wheelbase, but features 2+2 seating. Of course with all 4 seats up there is barely any luggage space, as that is created when you fold the rear seats down, which results in a luggage capacity of 584 liters.

Power is via two electric motors, one for each axle, effectively creating a 4WD system. The car’s specs indicate a nominal output of 27kW with a peak output of 54kW, which leads me to believe 27kW is only with one axle powered, with the other axle’s motor activating when maximum acceleration is needed. The vehicle can go up to an estimated 145km in lithium-ion batteries, or 220km on lithium-polymer batteries. It can be recharged in 4 hours max at 4.5kW, or 5 hours at 3kW.

Most agree that the technology behind the Fiat Phylla concept will find its way into an electric version of the upcoming new Fiat Topolino family of small cars that Fiat is planning to introduce. See two more images after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Fiat Phylla electric city car concept

Fiat has picked Serbia to be the production base for its new low-cost car. It will use Zastava’s former plant in Kragujevac, Serbia, with an initial capacity of 200,000 units a year, with plans for this to be upped to 300,000 units from 2010 onwards. Fiat will invest a sum of 700 million euros into the production line, and the Serbia will contribute 200 million euros through tax breaks and incentives.

The first model to be built at the Serbian plant will be called the Fiat Topolino. Fiat had a car called the Topolino back in the 1930s, and it was a two-seat minicar. The new Fiat Topolino will be based on the Fiat 500 and Fiat Panda’s platform, and will be a shorter vehicle than either of the two vehicles at 3150mm long. The Panda currently measures 3538mm long, and the Fiat 500 about 3550mm long. An upscale variant of the Topolino will be marketed under the Lancia brand. Topolino means “little mouse” in Italian.

It was previously reported that Fiat might revive the Uno or Palio name for a new low cost car program. Fiat announced that from 2010 onwards, a new low-cost car project currently codenamed the B-compact family will be produced at the Serbian plant. This should be the new low cost car, but no name was revealed.

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Fiat to develop new low-cost car

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The latest automaker to jump onto the low cost car bandwagon is Fiat. The company plans to reveal its low cost car somewhere in 2010. According to Fiat R&D Chief Harald Wester, the new low cost car will be slighty larger than the Fiat Panda, but did not quote any indicative price range for the car.

The new low-cost Fiat will help with the company’s position in markets such as South America, Russia, India and China. It’s not known yet whether the new low cost car will be Fiat-badged or not, as there is a possiblity of a new brand being used. Fiat is still conducting internal studies on whether a low cost model could damage Fiat’s image.

This car would effectively be the spiritual successor to the Fiat Palio, a supermini designed by Fiat as a “world car” aimed at developing countries. There has been speculation on the revival of the Fiat Uno nameplate as well.

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Fiat will be exhibiting an Aria version of the Fiat 500 alongside the Abarth version – two different ends of the product range, kinda like how Honda launched the Civic Hybrid and the Civic Type R at the same time.

Following the theme of the previous Fiat Panda Aria, the 500 Aria will be an eco-friendly car with an Euro 5 compliant 1.3 liter 16 valve Multijet turbodiesel with DPF filter, mated to a Dualogic automated manual transmission.

The Multijet turbodiesel also gets stop-start technology, which switches off the engine automatically during stops and automatically restarts it when you’re ready to go again. Fiat says this can improve fuel consumption by up to 10% in urban driving conditions. Other eco-options include low power consumption auxiliary units, reduced weight components and low-drag Pirelli tires.

The Fiat 500 Aria’s interior is made of recycled materials including a new floor material made from old tires, recycled seat upholstery and organic woven leather and fabrics.

Fiat says all of these eco-friendly technologies will make its way into production cars. Two more photos of the 500 Aria after the jump.

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Fiat has released more official details and photos of the new Fiat 500 Abarth, so I’m posting a follow-up to the previously posted 500 Abarth story.

The engine under the hood is confirmed to be the drive by wire Fiat Fire 1.4 liter 16 valve DOHC engine, which uses an IHI variable geometry turbocharger to boost power up to 135 horsepower at 5,500rpm and 180Nm of torque at 2,500rpm. In sports mode, this torque is boosted up to 206Nm at 3,000rpm. This engine is mated to a 5-speed gearbox, with dual cable external gearbox control. It meets Euro 5 emission standards.

The Fiat 500 Abarth uses MacPherson struts at the front and a torsion beam rear axle with anti roll bar. The suspension is naturally lower than the stock 500 for a sportier stance. The power steering system is a Dualdrive EPS with Sport mode, which tightens during sportier driving conditions. The interior features an LED gear change indicator and an analogue boost gauge for the turbocharger.

Brakes are 284 x 22 mm ventilated discs at the front with floating ZPH 4.1.2 calipers, while the rear uses 240 x 11 mm solid discs with floating CII 34 calipers. Standard wheels are 16 inch with 195/45R16 tyres, with an option for 17 inchers with 205/40R17 tyres.

More photos and a video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Fiat releases Fiat 500 Abarth official details

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The first details on the upcoming Fiat 500 Abarth have been revealed, and it looks like the MINI Cooper S has a new competitor, although the 500’s 135 horsepower figure and over-8 second 0-100km/h sprint time looks like it is overshadowed by what the turbocharged direct injection 1.6 Prince engine in the Cooper S can do.

The Fiat 500 Abarth’s 1.4 liter Fire family engine puts out 135 horses at 5,500rpm and 206Nm of torque at 3,000rpm, but probably has potential to put out more, possibly up to 180 horses in aggressive states of tune. Expect a boosted up variant to appear in the Fiat 500 Abarth Essesse.

Tata is inching very closely to acquiring Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor Company, and everyone is already assuming the two companies are in Tata’s hands, in a deal that analysts have pegged at being worth between US$1.5 to US2.0 billion.

One company that is very happy about all of this is Fiat, who has a close relationship with Tata. Tata uses Fiat turbodiesel engines in their cars, and the two companies have a partnership worth Rs 4000 crore (3.3 billion ringgit) in India.

Fiat says this will most likely allow the Italian company to get access to Jaguar’s technologies. It is particularly interested in Jaguar’s rear wheel drive platform as well as Land Rover’s four-wheel drive technology. Yup, you guessed right – the first model from the Fiat group to benefit from this is most likely the new flagship Alfa Romeo 169, which Fiat plans to develop as a rear wheel drive car.

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Ford may forgo retained stake in Jaguar and Land Rover

Fiat Group Automobiles has announced that they will unveil its first dual-clutch gearbox in September 2009. The gearbox will be designed and built by Fiat Powertrain Technologies at an investment of 500 million euros. The new gearbox called the DDC will be able to handle up to 343Nm of torque. The dual clutch transmission is one of three transmission variants in the C635 family. The other two will be a manual and a single clutch automated manual.

The new dual clutch Fiat Powertrain Technologies C635 gearbox will use two dry clutches (DDC means Dual Dry Clutch) which are lighter and require less cooling than wet clutches, but there is no indication at the moment how many speeds the gearbox would have, though 6-speed is the most likely since the C635 family will feature a manual as well, and I don’t think a 7-speed manual is very common,

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The Fiat Bravo now has two new engine options, a 105 horsepower turbodiesel and a 120 horsepower turbodiesel – both 1.6 liter Fiat Multijet 16v engines in different states of tune. The new 120 horsepower 16 liter Multijet replaces the old 120 horses 1.9 liter Multijet. The new Multijet’s torque has improved by 25% – 300Nm at 1,500rpm (105hp version has 290Nm), and its consumption has been reduced by 8%, measured on the NEDC cycle. Noise levels has been reduced by 5%. Acceleration time from 80-120 km/h in 5th gear is almost 4 seconds lower.

Most impressively, the engine has a service interval of 35,000km, reducing normal maintenance costs by 25%! The Fiat Bravo is a fun little car especially with a manual gearbox. Read my earlier short test drive report of the 1.4 liter T-JET turbocharged petrol version linked in the related post list below.

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Fiat Bravo GT 1.4 T-JET 150hp Short Test Drive

Artist’s Impression – Click to enlarge

LATEST DELHI 2008 UPDATE: Tata has unveiled the Tata 1-Lakh Car and has named it the Tata Nano. Click here for the latest details on the new Tata Nano.

Artist’s Impression – Click to enlarge

This is a little bit of imagination going wild here… but something I think is interesting nonetheless. Most of you know that Tata is developing a 1-Lakh car (USD2,500), and we’ve seen an artist’s impression of it when I wrote about the car back in October.

Now, Tata currently has a JV with Fiat, and Fiat’s plant at Ranjangaon, Pune is making both Fiats and Tatas. Tata even uses Fiat diesel engines for its Tata Indica and Tata Indigo. Now, what if Fiat uses the Tata 1 lakh car as a baseline budget model, and a pure styling-enhanced Abarth model is created from it?

Seems like a long shot… but doesn’t stop the very generous Theophilus Chin from flexing his Photoshop muscles and creating something at a request from another paultan.org reader, who had this crazy idea in the first place.

Above is the result, along with a new artist’s impression of the Tata 1-Lakh car, looking alot better than the previous version I posted. The original 1-Lakh car is a 5-door, while the “Abarth” is a 3-door version.

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More details on the Tata 1-lakh car