Fiat says Cinquecento will become the iPod of cars |
| News created: 4. juli 2007 15:47 |
Fiat is launching a new version of the three-door Cinquecento -- which means "500" in Italian -- at a ceremony in its hometown of Turin on Wednesday, with the car making its comeback after going out of production in the 1970s.
Fiat's chief executive says he wants to emulate Apple by making its cars as stylish as the U.S. company's computers and electronic gadgets, including the mass-selling iPod portable music player.
"I want Fiat to become the Apple of cars," Sergio Marchionne told La Stampa newspaper in an interview published on Wednesday.
"And the Cinquecento will be our iPod," he said, referring to Apple's hugely successful iPod.
Like the Mini or the Volkswagen Beetle, the Cinquecento is an icon. For Italians, it epitomizes the economic boom that their country enjoyed after the Second World War.
Cheap and efficient, it gradually replaced the scooter for millions of people whose living standards improved dramatically during the 1950s and 1960s.
After 18 years on the road the Cinquecento went out of production in 1975.
Marchionne said he was working to make Fiat a nimble automaker after a successful restructuring. |
| www.fiat.com |
