Production of the Fiat 500, whose name made a comeback in 2007, has now stopped at the factory in Italy. The last car has already left the assembly line. And then not anyway.
17 years.
That's how long the body Fiat originally gave the 500 model a comeback with in 2007 has been in production. But now it's over. The factory in Poland has stopped production.
This is confirmed by Fiat's Swedish importer to Vi Bilägare .
– It is true that the production of the Fiat 500 Hybrid with the older bodywork and the Abarth 595 series has stopped and it has not been possible to order a new one from the factory since June 2024, says Simone Lazzarin, PR and communications manager at Astara Sweden, in a comment to the media.
READ ALSO: The government will introduce a blood alcohol limit of 0.0 for motorists
However, the Fiat 500 does not disappear from the model range, even if the original comeback, on whose platform the Ford Ka was also built, is now short in the grave.
Because even though the basic model is saying goodbye after a delay of 17 years, the electric version Fiat 500e is still alive. But that model is not selling as Fiat expected.
Therefore, the platform is now being updated so that the discontinued model can be replaced by a new Fiat 500 with a hybrid drivetrain. However, that was not Fiat's original idea at all. So that a hybrid car would be necessary.
– Like everyone else, we believed that the world would switch to electric operation faster and that the costs of electrification would fall faster.
But we could not have imagined that a pandemic would occur, that there would be a shortage of raw materials, and that European society – not all, not the youngest part – would turn its back on sustainable solutions. But this is what reality looks like, says Fiat's managing director Olivier François to Autocar.
Here at home, 622 factory-new Fiat 500s have been given number plates in the course of the first half of 2024. This means that the Fiat importer has sold only one other car that was not a 500 in the course of the same period.
Read more exciting news from and about the world of cars right here!
