Fiat Is Rude As Hell for Bringing the Europe-Only 500 to the NY Auto Show

The New York Car Show was bleak this year, with numerous main automakers not in attendance and rather much each and every new debut just a facelift of an present model. But in the corner of the Stellantis stand there ended up two shining rays of gentle: A pair of new Fiat 500s. The only capture is, the 500 is only sold in Europe and is not going to come to the US. What the hell, Fiat?

The new 500 was unveiled in March 2020 right as the pandemic was wreaking havoc on the auto business (and the planet), so this was my initial time genuinely getting to see and working experience a person in man or woman. And male is it fantastic. A floor-up redesign with a entirely electrical powertrain, the new 500 manages to glance way more modern and upscale whilst continue to remaining as stylish and retro as it should really. Its inside is so significantly nicer than the past 500, with an improved infotainment system, larger-conclusion resources and some intelligent details.

Each hardtop and cabrio designs ended up on exhibit at the exhibit, with the hatch painted in a wonderful rose gold and the convertible one of the Project Purple particular editions. But it was the hardtop that genuinely grabbed my notice, simply because the new three-as well as-a person design adds a little suicide doorway to the passenger aspect of the vehicle. In spite of its little size, the addition of that excess doorway and the lack of a B-pillar tends to make it considerably easier to get into the 500’s again seat.

Stellantis does not seriously have an explanation for why these 500s were being at the automobile present. It seems like the automobiles had been already brought more than to the US for CES previously this 12 months, wherever Stellantis showed off its world wide electrification efforts, and the corporation just made a decision to carry them to New York to have something on the stand. There are info sheets in the windshields that converse all about the car, and they only have a person sentence in a quite tiny font about how the 500 is just not obtainable in the US.

Producing the existence of the 500s even much more annoying is the state of the Fiat brand in standard. With the discontinuation of the 500, 500L and 124 Spider, the only Fiat offered in the US is the 500X crossover, which is now 8 yrs previous and not excellent at all. (It has a amazing new Yachting trim with a rollback roof, at the very least.) With the death of the BMW i3 and Fiat’s most important competitor Mini heading absolutely electric, I believe there is certainly surely a market for the new 500 in the US, even if it would will need to don a additional top quality value tag. Viewing the cars and trucks at the car demonstrate just produced me even sadder and madder that it is not going to occur.