(first posted 8/15/2015) If Fiat’s global strategy seemed confusing in the 1980s, this conservative four-door sedan will not alleviate that confusion. The Regata was a three-box version of the Ritmo/Strada hatch, later available as a wagon, and was the Fiat that was to keep the brand alive in Australia. It failed.
First, it’s worthwhile pointing out that Fiat got its wires crossed in the North American and Australian markets. Sub-compact and compact hatches were certainly prevalent in 1970s and 1980s North America – witness the Colt, Chevette and Pinto – but people generally preferred sedans. However, Fiat chose to introduce the quirkily-styled Ritmo/Strada hatch in America, which failed to save Fiat from exiting the market in 1981.
In Australia, small sedans are rarer. Sure, Ford had its three-box Laser, the Meteor, and there were plenty of Corolla sedans driving around. However, hatchbacks were at an all-time high in popularity in the 1980s, and remain the preferred body style in the compact segment. Small sedans tend to be favoured more by older people and have a more conservative image. Despite this, Fiat decided to plod along with a sedan offering despite the mediocre sales of the defunct 131.
Fiat had been a rising star in 1960s Australia, gaining momentum with fun-to-drive sedans like the 1962 1500. While Ford and Holden were selling truckloads of conservatively engineered, six-cylinder sedans, Fiat arrived with a sporty sedan featuring front disc brakes and an excellent and rev-happy four-cylinder engine.
The 1967 124 had even greater handling and was priced close to base model Falcons and Holdens. But it wasn’t the only sport compact game in town, as the dynamic Datsun 1600 arrived and earned critical and commercial acclaim.
Fiat Argenta
Fiat sales still surged to record highs for 1970, with 5692 cars sold. Fiat’s fortunes were fading, though. The modern, front-wheel-drive 127 and 128 were unsuccessful in a market dominated by conservative, rear-wheel-drive compact offerings like the Holden Torana. Fiat’s new generation RWD offerings, the 131 and 132, rode and handled worse than their forebears and were visually bland. They ended up sticking around for far too long and although they received tweaks and new names, SuperBrava and Argenta, they were decidedly old-hat by their swansong year, 1984.
Fiat sales were in the wilderness, having fallen precipitously to a low of just 406 units in 1983. Fresh metal was needed, and it came in the form of the 1985 Regata (spelled Regatta in Sweden and Latin America) and 1987 Croma.
To call the Regata fresh was a misnomer. It was simply a three-box Ritmo, and thus the mechanicals were a good 7 years old at the time of its launch. Still, it was a huge change from the 131/SuperBrava mechanically. Gone was the rear-wheel-drive layout and the venerable 2.0 four-cylinder, replaced with front-wheel-drive and a 1.6 four-cylinder in either SOHC (Regata 85S) or twin-cam (Regata 100S) variants. Suspension was all-independent, and the Regata featured rack-and-pinion steering and front disc brakes.
Despite the smaller engine, the Regata 100S stacked up well against its predecessor. Power was 99 hp at 5900rpm, while the 131’s bigger engine produced 108 hp at 5500rpm. The 1.6 four was an old engine, but it had been extensively updated with revised ports, new combustion chambers and a new carbureter. In 85S form, power was 80 hp and 88 lb-ft.
The new sedan was about an inch longer, but was 286lbs lighter at 2138lbs. The Regata’s styling may have been boxy, but it had a slippery drag coefficient of 0.37. By most accounts, it was also quieter and more refined than its predecessor but retained a distinctively Fiat engine note.
Standard transmission was a five-speed manual, but a three-speed automatic arrived later along with a practical wagon variant known as Weekend. The Regata was initially priced at $AUD13,995, identical to the outgoing SuperBrava. Power steering and air-conditioning were optional, but front power windows and central locking were standard equipment. Interior packaging was superior to its predecessor, owing to its FWD layout, and the cabin was light and airy and the trunk huge. The Regata featured full instrumentation including an elaborate vehicle monitor display.
The features list and roomy interior were about all the praise the Regata would receive from the motoring media. Simply put, the new FWD Fiat failed to carry on the legacy of fun-to-drive Fiats. A serial understeerer, the Regata had mediocre roadholding abilities and excessive body roll. Wheels was critical of the car’s excessive nose-diving upon braking, and complained it squirmed and tugged upon take off. They were, however, impressed with the fit-and-finish which they claimed rivalled the Corolla.
Clearly, the Regata was dynamically off-the-pace. Its showroom companion, the Croma, was a much newer and more appealing offering, sized similarly to the Holden Commodore and based on the Type Four platform shared with the Saab 9000 and Alfa Romeo 164. It was targeted and priced against the Peugeot 505, BMW 318i and Volvo 240, but despite its modern styling and practical hatchback layout, its sales were weak.
LNC Industries, Fiat’s importer, was bullish about sales. By 1988, they hoped to reach 5000 annual units with the Regata and Croma, and were to introduce the Lancia Thema and Fiat Uno to book-end their lineup.
The importer had been overly optimistic. During the latter half of the 1980s, Fiat Australia sold around 450 to 700 units per year. Those figures were well below expectations, and instead of trying to expand the lineup with more desirable offerings like the pert Uno or the roomy new Tipo, Fiat threw in the towel by the beginning of the new decade.
The Italians were leaving Australia. Lancia was already gone, the Thema’s Australian launch having never eventuated. Alfa Romeo would leave in the early 1990s. So began the long cycle of false starts and relaunch rumors. Fiat planned to return in the mid-1990s with the Bravo/Brava twins, but that fell through. Then, the 2000s were to see the return of Fiat with the new-generation Croma and Stilo but neither arrived. Fiat would finally return in 2006 with the stylish Ritmo and Punto, but still wasn’t successful until the retro-chic 500 arrived and Fiat bolstered its Fiat Professional commercial vehicles lineup.
European brands tend to perform best when their products are either keenly priced or distinctively styled. The Regata had been well-equipped but it was priced a not-insignificant $2k above high-end trims of the Corolla and Holden Camira, and its conservative styling didn’t help it stand out in a very competitive market. Sure, it was the cheapest European car on sale but what was its competitive advantage?
Fiat’s Australian operations had dug their own grave. Buyers who took the plunge were invariably left sweating when Fiat disappeared soon after from the Aussie market. The Regata stuck around far too long in its homeland, too, but at least there you could buy more competitive and stylish Fiats like the 1988 Tipo hatchback. Had Fiat been stung by the failure of the 127 and 128 in Australia, and does that explain their steadfast refusal to bring over some of the company’s cute and competitive hatchbacks?
Instead, Fiat had pinned its fortunes on a bland, outdated sedan that couldn’t even offer the Italian brio the company’s products had been known for. The Regata wasn’t a huge success in a hatch-hungry Europe either, except in certain markets like Turkey. The car that was supposed to save Fiat in Australia ended up killing it, and there would be no resurrection for 15 years.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: Fiat 131/Brava
Curbside Classic: 1964 Fiat 1500 Spider
Cohort Classic: 1972 SEAT (Fiat) 124
You did well to find one of these. If the peak hour traffic was any indication, Aussies could be forgiven for thinking the Wheels test car was the only one in the country. By the time this hit the market, nobody here was looking to Europe for anything other than a prestige car.
And once a company bows out from our market, it’s very hard for them to make a successful comeback. A friend has a Punto, but it’s the only one I’ve ever seen.
They were taxed into luxury car status by Aussie tariffs not built that way.
It was old by the time it got here.LATE 85 saw a New Meteor and a few months earlier we had New Corolla which were locally built versions of cars from Japan and lets not forget the Camira which by the end got the engine it deserved around the time the Fiat bowed out of Australia.The Ford and Toyota made one thankful for quality even if it lacked a soul in the process and the Holden in spite of the problems it has at least you weren’t always at the workshop every so often with a guy called Tony every six months.The problem is they priced themselves out of the market you were up against Rovers,Alfas and even Honda or Volvo for the most part.
I remember these being pieces of utter crap. Never has a car held less appeal for me.
Doug,
talking shit buddy!
For sure no Peugeot 504 but fuel efficient , very reliable, nothing went wrong.
Years of cheap motoring.
I went into a vertical bank after black ice, thought this was going to be a very serious accident, wondering how badly i would be hurt as i was in remote country.
No belt burns/bruising , just walked away from a car written off to the windscreen.
The only accident i thought i was going to be badly hurt.
The car worked!
Might be boring but well designed!
A friend had a wagon. Totally meh driving experience. I am a crusted-on Fiat fanboi, but these typify the ending of the golden period as far as I’m concerned.
You would probably know this: Who styled the Argenta (or, for that matter, the 131)? The Croma was by Italdesign, of course, and the 131 Abarth was Stilo Bertone, but if I were to guess, the Argenta looks like a Pininfarina tidy-up of the 131.
131 and 132 were in-house. I don’t think PF, Bertone or Italdesign turned the 132 into the Argenta; like the 131/Brava I think it was also in-house. Italdesign also did the Panda.
I remembered the latter, wasn’t sure about the rest. It’s a minor point, but while the Argenta is obviously sharing the same hardpoints as the 131, the detailing have the same sort of crispness as the Maremma (q.v.) and 130 Coupe while the 131 doesn’t so much.
No, the Argenta is the update of the 132; the SuperBrava is the update of the 131
132/Argenta
131/Brava. I think the US got the 131 Mirafiori/Supermirafiori as the Brava/Superbrava from day one which might lead to the idea that the 1981 onwards Argenta was an update of the 1972 onwards 131.
The US did get the original 131 Mirafiori from ’75-on, then the series 2 (facelifted) 131 was sold here as the base-spec Brava and higher-spec SuperBrava for ’78, then for ’79 the SuperBrava spec became the standard Brava spec until Fiat bowed out after the ’82 model year.
The US never did get any 132 or facelifted Argenta models at all.
The Tempra, which came afterwards, was a HUGELY better car. Much more comfortable and also better quality interior. I’ve sat (not driven) in both.
I tend to forget all the various models of cars Australia didnt get these days no late 60s Fiat 125 it made the Datsun 1600 look kinda pathetic and the range of later Euro stuff is lacking too, I do recall seeing a few of these Regatas though while never common they were about, interesting street youve found too I see a BX Citroen parked opposite TDI or petrol ? that would be worth a write up they could out corner a M3 during races quite a competent handler.
Yep, Dad had an oz-delivered 125. It had the quad vertical tailights but I can’t remember if it was a Special.
We had a 125T homologated for standard production racing they made 68 the S was a 5 speed from memory a workmate had one fairly quick for what it was slower than my 3.3 PB Velox but most cars were.
Bryce, you gotta write that T model up. It’s not even mentioned in my treasured ‘Tutte le Fiat’ (All the Fiats) book. Even if you can’t do a CC, maybe a short Automotive History?
I know little about them Don I did shoot one for the cohort a while ago its one of like 5 survivors and was in the Dunlop Targa they were built for racing here in NZ that has a lot to do with the lack of survivors they were built to compete with 3.3L Vauxhall Victors also very rare now though those were more common but both cars were New Zealand only models not available in their home markets. That will be why your books dont know about them lots of guys back in the day souped their 125s up to “T” spec.
The last Fiat model I liked was the Grande Punto, a B-segment hatchback, introduced in 2005. The Fiat with the Maserati-nose. The Grande Punto and Maserati 4200 GT are both Giugiaro designs.
All they’ve got now is an endless variation of the 500-theme, and a few Pandas. Their market share shrank drastically in the past decades. Small (B-segment) French and Italian cars have always been highly popular around here. I would certainly prefer a Renault Clio or Peugeot 208 to a Fiat 500 these days.
And the sweet 180 hp (from a 1.4 liter turbo engine) Abarth Grande Punto EsseEsse.
Meanwhile 200 hp has become the norm in B-segment hot hatches, mostly from a 1.6 liter turbo engine.
None of which is helped by the useless Alfa/Fiat dealers we have here in Austria, who cannot offer a test drive for a cataloged model. I wanted to test the 120 hp diesel Mito; the answer was “well, we don’t have one, don’t intend to have one but you can either test drive the 78 hp petrol (gasoline) Junior or take the chance and order one (but if you don’t, you’ll have to wait until October, because the factory goes on summer vacation)”. I’m not making this up. Instead they had endless variations on the Twin Air (2 cyl., 1.2 L petrol turbo with 140 hp? no thanks) which people do not want. They were not very helpful trying to score the Giulietta model pallet to find a model with a seat that does not have me screaming in pain after 10 minutes.
I went to Mazda and bought a 3.
sad when one thinks about it and very overpriced the 500’s are.it’s one of the few city cars still left on the market.i almost bought one used but found me a used holden spark automatic ls 2017 instead to replace a 2010 micra.why i chose korean?i cannot drive manual and fiats definition of what they call an automatic is a joke.
I saw one in traffic on the A5 about 6 weeks ago… I don’t remember the time before
Rebadged Fiats (1986 movie Gung Ho).
Italian cars that were supposed to be Japanese, filmed in a factory in Argentina that was supposed to be in Pennsylvania-here’s Michael Keaton trying to drive his off the line:
Yes!!!
You’re sure that’s Michael Keaton ? Not some guy from Italy or Argentina, hired by the Japanese ?
Well, the theme song was by a British singer who was really from Ohio!
I would really like to hear him sing “Parlez-nous à boire”.
When I was a kid, I wondered what those cars were in Gung Ho…Thanks for mentioning it! They have such a “generic car” look to them, I thought they were custom made for that movie!
You have to wonder if things would have been different for Fiat in the U.S. if they had sold the Regata in addition to or instead of the Strada. Probably not, as Fiat had developed a solid rep of mediocre build quality in a market where the Japanese were printing money selling tough but plain sedans.
I was in and out of the country several times in the late 70s-early 80s….to Japan. So I think I’ve seen 1, maybe 2 Stradas on the streets. The one I remember was an olive green one that sat on a “Buy here, pay here” lot in Memphis for at least a YEAR. Probably went from that lot to the crusher.
Quirky, when no one was shopping quirky. Could ALMOST work these days.
The Sad Story of Fiat (their cars, that is): …”and as the years went by, their quality improved while their market share and sales numbers shrank”…
My dad had a Fiat, an 850 Sport Coupe. And his name is Tony. Of all the possible names for a Jewish boy buying a Fiat, he had to be named Tony.
Anyway, he actually sorta had two. It was his third car, first new car, after a used 1960 Chrysler New Yorker and hand-me-down 1961 Pontiac Ventura. He bought it in 1968, paid for partially with money from a family friend. He left the dealer and, of course, headed straight for the family friend to show them the car… on the trip there, the engine seized- apparently due to a lack of oil or some such.
The dealer agreed that this was their fault, and gave him another car entirely. Hence why he owned two. He owned the car for three years. It had some problems. Minor little stuff. Like the throttle cable snapping as he was pulling onto the BQE in rush hour. Like the steering wheel coming off in my mothers hands in a parking lot. Like the car NEVER starting in cold weather. And like the dealer acting like total dipshits every time.
And then their was the rust. It rusted almost immediately. By three years, the axle had seized, and he happily watched a tow truck take it away. My parents bought a VW Beetle on their deferred honeymoon to Europe in 1971, and stayed a one car family until my dad bought a Pinto in 1974.
That really sums up Fiat’s problems in the US- a total lack of interest in coming up with decent emissions control systems made the cars terrible runners. The horrendously bad Russian steel made them rust bombs. And to add insult to injury, it’s dealer network was weak and indifferent.
Don’t get me wrong- for some strange reason, I like Fiats. Not as much as Mercedes, Peugeots, Citroens, or god help me, Volgas, but I like them. Fiat engineered some impressive cars. Fun to drive as all get out. But their cars were always misunderstood, the products not quite assembled properly, with a total lack of rust proofing.
Fiats problem, the world over, was an iron-clad, rock-of-gibralter solid reputation. Their reputation was so solid, it outlasts its validity, to this day. Their reputation is Fix It Again Tony. The quality of the product, in both assembly and general excellence has been irrelevant for decades. Nobody thinks Fiats are crappy cars, rather, everybody knows they are. Ipso facto, Fiat makes crappy cars. Why look at them?
I know that myself. For my purposes, the Fiat 500L is actually a very appealing product. I’m not buying one because its a Fiat. I’m also not considering the Ram ProMaster City or Ram ProMaster for the same reason, even though they both would fit into what I’m looking for.
So I wouldn’t say they are being naive in what the market is looking for. In the US they have brought in exactly the right kinds of products. Cute stuff. Stuff to sell to people who don’t buy cars while looking at accounting ledgers, or careful charts of what they need. What they are doing wrong is not building the 500 series with exceptional quality, while running a marketing campaign focusing heavily on its quality, durability, reliability and a (so far not extant) warranty to back up the claim.
Perception is everything, oddly enough. Otherwise Honda wouldn’t be a sales leader pushing badly engineered, cheaply built, inefficient vehicles while actually advertising proudly that they have the shortest warranty in the business. They are living on the wonderful products they stopped building a decade or more ago. Its a Honda, and thats a Good Thing. Apparently.
Its a Fiat. And thats a bad thing. Apparently.
I think your being overly dramatic. Fiat’s where always much better than German or Japanese cars. My father made a fortune fixing crappy German & Japanese cars in the 1980’s, the people who drove them where affected hippy types, who drank the cool-aide hard.
One guy who came to my dad’s shop, bought a 1981 Toyota Land Cruiser new, brought it back yearly to repair the un-stopable rust until the dealer told him that it was normal “Toyota Quality rust” He sold it to my dad in 1991 for $200! Now that’s resale value!
Never mind the army of four or five year old beetles that my father would send to the scrap yard. Most of them the driver seat would go through the floor and scrape along the highway!
I still see a lot of late seventies & early eighties Fiat’s driving around Toronto (mostly 124 Spiders & x/19’s) but try finding a Volkswagan or Japanese car.
Korean cars which I have personally saw people’s perception of quality change over the years (while actual quality is laughable) are the old guard hippies car of choice recently- which I still can’t fathom.
Fiat suffers the same problems that the big three suffer- they along with the french created the car business, but now they are all being usurped by newer companies- I mean Hitler founded Volkswagen! And the Japanese & Koreans stated their car industries by building Fiat’s under licence.
Fiat left the american car market because reagan became president. Imagine Fiat sold cars in the USA & USSR! What other company did that. They where number 1 in western europe & had a total monopoly in eastern europe!
In the end what was it that hurt Fiat’s perception? Did Gianni Agnelli embrace planned obsolescence a little to much? The Japanese & German cars all rusted just as horribly, but the hippy generation loves them.
I think as time goes on and all the hippy types die off, companies like the GM,Ford, and Fiat-Chrysler will be in the pound seat, because they have something that all the johnny come lately companies don’t have. Substance, and in the end substance is real and tangible.
I have to say that the only places that cars rust is either coastal areas or in states that salt their roads. In Oregon we do not salt our roads and I have driven many 20-30 year old cars over the past 40 years with less rust than a 3-4 year old car east of the Rockies. Currently have 3 rust free cars the youngest is a 1994.
Fiats have always been great drivelines with pretty but crappy bodies and dodgy electrics wrapped around them.
(Former owner 1974 124 Spyder)
great products these days.I don’t know much mechanically about them though.Last year was my most recent time in a Fiat that was new in quite a long time.It was a Ducato 12 SEAT VAN run by a company called Redy2Go Airport Shuttle in Sydney loved it.
I don’t think I’m being overly dramatic. I wasn’t alive when my dad had the Fiat. In fact, I wouldn’t be born until 13 years after he got rid of it, so the extent of my dramatization, if it is at all such, is the work of my family telling stories about Tony having to Fix It Again.
I’m not being dramatic about cars reliability, either. In fact, you almost seem to be agreeing with me. My point is that perception of a reliable car is much more relevant than the reality. My family has owned, between my parents and sister, 3 cars I would call lemons- a ’68 Fiat 850 Sport Coupe, a ’94 Infiniti J30, and a ’01 Audi A6. That covers Germany, Japan, and Italy.
I also had a ’01 GMC T6500 (AKA Isuzu FRR) with the most prestigious of engine builders (Caterpillar) little 3126 that drove me crazy- I owned it a year, put about 10k miles on it, and spent more money repairing it than I spent buying it, mostly due to that “little Cat”. I don’t think it was a lemon. I just think they misspelled the injection system- they called it “HEUI” and I called it “hooey”. I think they were all that bad. I base that on some of the discussions about it I had with other people around the counter at Petro.
But people still love Yellow Iron. Their OTR engines have always been shit, but people love them.
Fiat’s tempermental engines and crappy steel earned them a reputation as a piece of garbage. They could be building first-gen LS400s at twice the precision of Toyota out of Unobtanium right now, for half the price, and still be thought unreliable and be avoided in droves.
Hyundai is the only one who ever managed to break out of that with complete success. And they did it with a warranty so good you could drive the car the full average use span of a vehicle and not duck out of warranty. By promising they’d pay for anything that broke within the average buyers expected life-cycle, and for its powertrain beyond that, they got people to give it a timid look. And by then, their cars were actually good enough to justify their low prices. And so success ensued.
Most people don’t know anything about Eastern Bloc cars. Those that know a lot about them tend to hold them in some degree of respect. Their engineering was to the Russian Standard. (American Standard- Build to minumum requirements, then cut costs. Japanese Standard- build it to twice the American Standard but with enough play in precision as to allow bad maintenance practice. German Standard- Build everything to between 2 and 5 times the requirement, where the requirement is the maximum insane use factor. Russian Standard- Design something to such a standard that it falls somewhere above the German Standard in ideal circumstances, but meets at least the American Standard when it is assembled of awful materials by drunk workers).
Unfortunately, some Togliatti employees were something past drunk. Anyway.
The one area you are wrong is that GM or Chrysler cars have substance. They sincerely don’t. They are generally badly built, under engineered, and overweight. GM has consistently had a hard time understanding customers with above average IQs (by which I mean 101 and up). They cut costs and development at odd times on a Harvard Business School schedule that tends to involve them randomly shooting themselves in the foot. So long as people believe in the horse pocky that Harvard Business School teaches, American companies will be at an inherent disadvantage.
I feel sorry for GM, actually. They make so much progress, here, there, and yonder. They start to make sense, and do things in a sane way. They try to bring a few good products to market, and usually succeed. And then they shoot themselves in the foot again with some stupid, half-baked, stupidly overpriced or completely uncompetitive, badly built shit can that puts them back on square one- exampli gratia- the current Malibu or the ELR.
Car business is the most cut-throat manufacturing business there is. The margins are razor thin, the market is extremely volatile, fickle, and highly illogical. Good, well conceived, practical products are often the exactly wrong answer. (Witness the Ford Five Hundred, a masterpiece of sheer logic and engineering excellence that didn’t sell at all.)
I owned a Ford, actually. I sorta liked it. It was an ’00 Econoline 250. I ran it for about a year, about 35,000 miles. I bought it very used for $1400. I carried around my market setup and all my inventory, up and down mountains, definitely overloaded. All I put into it were oil changes, until the tranny went south and trying to limp it home with 3 gears seized the engine. It was unrefined, noisy as heck, and road terrible. But it ran danged good.
Which continues what I’m saying- Perception does not equal reality, except to the extent where perception is the reality in the mind of the marks (car buyers).
“Its a Honda, and thats a Good Thing. Apparently.
Its a Fiat. And thats a bad thing. Apparently”
Geeze… I didn’t think Noah Ritter was old enough to drive… apparently, I’m wrong. My first new car purchase was a ’74 X1/9, which ran flawlessly for the 99K miles in the 6 years I owned it. All it required was following the recommended maintenance schedule like an adult would. I only sold it to buy a larger car to accomodate our kids. I bought a new 2012 Abarth in May of ’12… excellent performance so far, no issues or complaints. I also currently own an ’81 X1/9, which is easily maintained, has nearly 201K miles on it and is driven primarily around town. I’m a Fiat guy and preach to the great unwashed about the pleasures of owning and driving them. here’s my ’81 X…
Your missing my point entirely. Fiat has built some utterly wonderful cars in the course of its history. The Fiat Dinos, the 130, the X1/9, not to mention the 124. (I TOLD YOU NOT TO MENTION IT! yay for Soupy Sales)
That doesn’t matter at all. Because people perceive Fiat as a car company that built such bad cars, they fled our market. (Never mind that it had a lot more to do with economics relating to exchange rates, fairly low sales, and insane adaptation to market expenses at that time fairly unique to the US) That’s what people think. And perception is reality in the mind of the perceiver.
Hondas have not been particularly impressive cars for a decade or more. In fact the paint quality on my dad’s Accord is abysmal. It looks like a five year old put it on with a rattle can. I’ve seen orange peels with less orange peel. Tons of paint pooling too. And it threw an engine at 75k miles or so (Honda, apparently not a bunch of total nincompoops, picked up the tab). But people perceive them as being practically the ne plus ultra, on a tie with (similarly in error, too) Toyota. Honda’s current advertising campaign seems to be trumpeting both their name and their weakest-in-the-industry warranty.
The implication is you don’t need a longer warranty, since the car doesn’t break down. In order for that to be true, however, extending the warranty to equal Hyundai’s would have to be, in basis of fact, nearly free. It is either not true, or Honda is run by peerless idiots. And the fact they paid for my Dad’s engine discredits the latter.
It was too little too late for the X1/9 when they brought it back to Australia in 1988.My father had one in 1978 for two years but new seat belt laws saw us sell that fast.By it’s return as a Bertone we had the HONDA CRX,TOYOTA MR2 and for those of us who wanted a dual income no kids car but had kids and needed a sometimes rear seat Nissan Exa 1.6 to 1.8 L Twin cam 16 valves.how could Fiat’s importer compete with that.We looked at getting a MR2 Spyder many years later after having that original X1/9 and to my surprise there was this no height restriction and by that time we kids were driving on our own.I only wish to this day I had taken the pictures of the car to show the Toyota dealer of the memories.
Enough about the car, what’s with the architectural collage of pickets and lattice in the background?
The houses are typical hundred-year-old Queenslander. A tropical climate, so they were built up on stilts to allow cool air to circulate underneath, then closed in for storage when air conditioning became a thing and people had more stuff.
Wasn’t this the rental car at the end of National Lampoon’s European Vacation?
Yes.
http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_41713-Fiat-Regata-149-1984.html
I used to see one parked in Lygon street, silver in colour. Seemed to be used daily, probably from one of the local shop owners. I haven’t been there for some time, so I dunno if it’s still being used.
Fiats tend to be a rare sight here. The last 131 I saw was sitting in a park near Box Hill. Full rego, which was nice
These (as the 131s before them) were reasonably popular in Israel but back then Fiat was strong in the market, this being helped by Italy being only three days away by ship. However, by that time the big Japanese makers started import and the game was up. Nowadays there has been something of (very modest) resurgence and the dealers started to realize they HAVE to be competitive on price on models other than the 500/595 like the 500X but they will have an uphill struggle. Similar story in Austria where the cheap Panda and the 500/595 sell reasonably well but the others… I think it has not yet sank in that Fiat – as old and historically significant as it is – nowadays plays at the same league as Dacia (poverty brand by Renault, and quite successful in Europe on account of pricing). If it wants to recapture its glory days, it will have to swallow its pride, start at the bottom and work its way up (which I think is what it’s doing with Chrysler in the US). However, working for an Italian concern I know that a lot depends on which person runs the show, and if the relevant Capo has pride issues, chances are nothing will happen…
Fiat’s European Glory Days will never come back.
Here in the US, I think that FCA is trying to position Fiat similar to BMW’s MINI brand, which on it’s first inspection, isn’t a bad idea. Fiat had been away from the US market for 30 or so years and only older folks have any memory of the “Fix it again, Tony” days.
When I first heard that Fiat would re-enter the US market, I was hoping we’d see Euro market cars like the Panda or the Punto; little did I realize it was only going to be a diet of 500s or 500-based specials. But in the intervening three years, it seems that re-establishing the Fiat brand in the US has been an uphill battle.
The cars themselves seem to be pretty decent, but against a slate of US, German, Japanese and Korean cars, and a somewhat enigmatic name (500? 500 of what? It’s tiny. Shouldn’t it be 100?) it seems to have stalled. I think the 500X crossover is a great move, it should have been here sooner as CUV sales are exploding in the US.
I hope that Fiat can re-establish itself in the USDM, as I think that there needs to be a new paradigm for smaller cars that isn’t Japanese or Korean. I’m hoping that someday we’ll see French cars in the US market again, too. For too long we’ve had this hegemony with regard to design and styling of small cars that is too “Bauhaus” in it’s execution. I’m glad to have something a little different in terms of choice.
My problem with the 500 is that I can’t take it seriously. It’s too toy-ish, too doll-like. I wouldn’t dare to drive it through a small puddle of mud. I’m afraid the lil’ Fiat starts to cry and refuses to drive any further, because it got a bit dirty.
Haha, Johannes. I also think of them as toylike, but really they’re no smaller than the original Honda Civic that was sold here.
I’d like a 500 Abarth, but many of them have way too many racing stripes on them, I can’t take those cars too seriously. There have been some I’ve seen that are more “civilian” and I think I’d like one of those. We’ll see what’s available when I’m ready to buy again.
Fiat in my opinion can come back but it _must_ accept it’s competing with the bottom feeders now. The 500L should take look at the Dacia Logan MCV for pricing, the Jeep Renegade at the Dacia Duster and the Freemont (Dodge Journey) at Hyundai’s Tucson. And it would not hurt to have the Dart as an entry-level sedan (I know it’s a Giulietta underneath but the above sells for a different type of customer, who would never consider a Fiat) to provide value when compared with the Koreans and Seat.
they priced it out of it’s segment and get this when they returned in 2006 no automatic options.I was keen on a Punto to replace a trusty Mazda but that one factor alone saw me defect to Nissan for a Tiida which was reliable but it just didn’t have a soul.I wasn’t alive when my parents had their pair of Fiat 128’s but the memories they had of all their Fiat’s was a good one.I go past the dealers these days and they are charging for their baby close to Hyundai or Kia base model prices.I loved my first Nissan but would have given anything to have waited an extra year for the new age bambino.
The lower bodyside rubber that Fiat used all around on some of their late eighties models must have been an answer to the rust issues of the earlier ones. I can see a salesman, when asked about rust pointing it out. It seems it should have stuck out a little more, like on the early Uno, to also prevent dings.
My oh my, but this is a boring car. Hard to believe it’s a variant of the Strada, which at least looked distinctive. This is almost non-styled, except for a tiny bit of flair the way the rear fender cuts create a character line to the rear bumper. Other than that, it’s a 3-box car composed completely of forgettable, generic lines.
Being more charitable, I do rather like the Nuovo 500. It seems to have a bit of a “chick car” reputation here, though personally I wouldn’t mind one of the Abarth versions if I was in the market for a small car. The 500X looks promising too; attractive and the hitting the compact CUV movement at the right time. 500L though…now that one was a swing and a miss on styling. The poor thing just looks odd, but not in an endearing way.
A Fiat executive back in the day reportedly described the Regatta as a “disgusting car”. I couldn’t agree more. Another reason why Fiat is not the force that it once was.
They are now just a parody with their 500 minicars.
Notwithstanding the rust issues, as far as I’m concerned the rot (no pun intended) at Fiat started with the 132 in 1972, which had none of the charm of its predecessor, the 125.
Despite having a coil spring rear end it handled worse that the leaf sprung 125, which whilst above average wasn’t the best handler in its class. The 132’s styling was very boring and in hindsight the Regatta is the 132’s boring FWD successor.
My first car was a 125 Special (Hint: someone REALLY needs to do a full CC article on the 125) but I bought it used in the late 1980s after I obtained my licence.
By then the Regatta has been out for a whole here and I found it an embarrassing presence in view of my 125 which I thought was very cool with its wood dash, cloth seats, Chromadora alloys, and cut price Alfa Guilia ambience, with only the pathetic Argenta rehash of the 132 being worse.
My perception of Fiat in its glory days was that whilst the rust and general workmanship of the cars was not the best, mechanicallly they were actually not too bad. My 124was quite reliable and it was at least 15 years old when I bought it, so I think the rust reputation somewhat unfairly transfered to every aspect of potential Fiat ownership.
As an aside the 124 Sport (my brother owned one) and the 125 both did pretty good business in Australia back in the day in the premium compact market and they both had a good reputation for being nicer to drive and better equipped than most of the other cars at similar price points, and especially the local Fords and Holdens.
To this day I still can’t work out why the 125 was not sold in the USA. It had more interior room than the 124 sedan, that twin cam engine made it a front runner for power and torque in its class, and the car was a great long distance highway cruiser which Americans like, thanks to that twin cam which was quite smooth once it had been wound up, especially with the 5 speed box in the S model.
More that one reviewer has commented that driving a 125S many years later it still felt like a more modern car in some respects as it could cruise all day at highly illegal speeds, depending on where you are.
Back to the Regatta (do we have to? ?). I’d almost forgotten about this horrible conveyance until I saw this article….
LOL at Fiat extolling the Strada for its reliability…
I’d love to know why the original owner chose to buy this car. Yes, Fiat sometimes had made good, even great, cars, but I can think of absolutely no reason to purchase this one. Everybody else seemed to do it better.
Fiat after the 124 seemed to be floundering, like Datsun after the 510. In the market, but no longer at the pointy end. Which was annoying, because you knew they could do better.
These things completely dissolved in less than 5 years in our climate.
The factory tires usually outlasted the car.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1980/01/05/us-charges-fiat-failed-to-comply-with-recall/12460886-f1aa-4445-876b-0a214ce2a17e/
” The Justice Department yesterday filed a $1.6 million lawsuit against Fiat Motors of North America contending that the automaker failed to recall and buy back 1970-71 model 850 Fiat autos because of a safety-related defect.
The suit filed in U.S. District Court, also asks the court to order Fiat to recall another 133,500 1970-74 124 model Fiats, because of the same defect — rust corrosion that weakens the car’s underbody….
The rust and corrosion in the 124 model Spyder, sedan, coupe and station wagons has caused the cars’ suspension system, steering system or the floor pan where seats are attached to separate from the car’s undercarriage, the lawsuit said, resulting in loss of vehicle, control. Those defects, similar to the ones found in the 850 model Spyders and Racer autos for the recall years, can result in accidents, the NHTSA contends.”
Regata could never eclipse the great acceptance , the big “culture” that once had set Fiat with their memorable 131 and 132 . You can easily understand it when a car was born without charisma !
The 131 and the 132 in particular were not memorable, at least not for the right reasons……
The Regata was far better than 131, 132 and Argenta. Better interior and modern design.
I could never understand what Fiat staff had in mind when they designed the Regatta, this is just awful in person and the most gangly car ever made by a large scale manufacturer, specially one from the Country of the design… And it was not that hard to make the Regatta a nice car, same doors style from its cousins Lancia Prisma / Delta would be enough to make the Regatta an attractive car, it would resemble his distant relative, the Lada Samara.
I could see both cars in person in the 90’s as the Regatta was very popular in Argentina and Lada sold the Samara in Brazil in the early 90’s.
Ah the Regata, great memories of this car. Here in Greece had some popularity in the 80’s, specially the first generation (1986-1986).
I don’t like Fiats very much but in my opinion the Regata was better than his competitors (Escort, Orion, Renault 9 or Peugeot 305). Not only the design but also the technology; it was the first car with an early start-stop system in Europe, it was agile and fast, i remebmber some Regata’s police cars not only in Italy buy also in Greece, Israel, Portugal, etc.
A friend had one, the 70, with 1.3 engine (the smallest), and i was surprised how fast it was and how well it accelerated if we compared it with other cars in segment C.
Definitely it was a good car, not much more.
Regata better than the Escort and 305?. The Escort was the best selling car in Europe for years, the Regata was unknown outside Italy. Best mechanic, best quality, reliability, etc. Sorry but no comparison between Escort and Regata.
Respect your opinion but i think the opposite. More popular car doesn’t mean it’s better.
Yes, the Escort was the best selling car. But it was rustic, noisy and ugly. Best mechanic and reliability is another opinion. For me the Regata engine was more advanced, the interior also better the Regata, more techologically advanced for the 80’s, drivability also, no comparison between the hard seats of the Escort and the Regata ones.
And finally, the diesel models. Agricultural noisy Escort engine versus silent diesel Regata, one of the most advanced diesel engines in the eighties.