The new 2008 Fiat 500 draws inspiration from the original 1950s model with its retro styling and small size. While sharing some design elements with its predecessor, the new 500 targets younger and trendier buyers rather than Italy's post-war mass market. Other modern vehicles that successfully emulate nostalgic earlier models include the new Mini Cooper and Volkswagen Beetle. However, some argue that calling a new car "vintage" implies outdated features rather than modern innovation.

1. The New Fiat 500 :The New Fiat 500 :
is it vintage?is it vintage?
By Andrea Schiroli

2. The new Fiat 500 goes on sale (in the UK) on
21 January 2008 - exactly 500 hours after the
start of the New Year;
- the new car’s chic styling boasts visual cues
from the past, those characteristics had a
great approval between the british people.
Fiat focused the car concept on those key
features:
- safety,
- technology,
- comfort,
- equipment,
-designed for the city.

3. Old vs New or Old plus
New (?)
The New Fiat 500 has a lot of design and
concept elements in common with the past
model of 500, for example the body and the
size. The most important difference is the
general concept : the new Fiat 500 has a
different target: young and trendy (vs the past
model designed as a car for Italy’s mass-market
after the Second World War).
Those key elements were put forward again in
2008 in a new model of car that focused it’s
success not on an innovative and modern
product, but on a missing successful past (the
sixties).

4. Can we call the New Fiat
500 a vintage model or
not?
OBVIOUSLY … Yes … !!!
And … why we can?
The New Fiat 500 has :
- a great inspired by the past design;
- a retrò renovated shape;
- and the past, if the marketing team is
able, makes the sales rise (…see next
slide for further examples)

5. Is New Fiat 500 an
isolated phenomenon?
Obviously not!
We can find notable examples in the
new model of Vespa’s motorcicle that
follows the baseline of the New Fiat
500.
Other models that represent this
phenomenon are: the New Bmw Mini
and the Wolksvagen New Beetle.
Fiat marketing team was so able to
decline this kind of nostalgia also in the
british automotive market, running to a
shocking success.

6. So, can we talk about
Vintage or it’s a sort of
taboo?
“…Vintage is the worst term to define New Fiat
500 model and other models of automotive in
general…”
the word vintage evocates “…too much
addiction to a far past, that makes the
consumer think to a lot of obsolete features,
not innovative or modern models in the car
sector … this term should be weeded out from
the present…” (Giorgio Re Ceo of Motom -
Lambretta, interviewed durign EICMA Expo -
Milan, Dec. 2008)

7. Thanks for the attention
…
Sources - Bibliography and Sitography:
•ansa.it;
•duemotori.com;
•eicma.it;
•fieldwork “Vintage in automotive” during the course
“Consumi e Cambiamento Sociale” Prof. Mauro Ferraresi
and Dot.ssa Giovanna Russo, Libera Univeristà di Lingue
e Comunicazione IULM – Milano, December 2008;
•fiat.com;
•financialtimes.com;
•generalmotors.com;
•gettyimages.come;
•googlenews.com;
•vespa.com.