I love it when I’m confronted with a car that I did not know existed, and thanks to RiveraNotario, I now know about the existence of the Fiat Oggi. What a great name, for starters. How come we didn’t get names like that here?
What exactly is a Fiat Oggi? At first glance, I thought it might be a Panda with a big booty. Not quite.
Here’s a shot of it from the front, from the web. No; it’s not Panda-based.
It’s based on the Fiat 147, which was a Brazilian variant of the Fiat 127.
The Oggi was only built in Brazil for three years (1983-1985), and it had a very capacious trunk: 440 liters. It had a 1.3 L Fiat four, available in gasoline and alcohol-burning versions. Some 20k Oggis were built.
Now that you’ve expanded your automotive vocabulary you can impress your friends and family.
The 1st gen Jetta, or maybe even the Riley Elf/Wolseley Hornet, sure started a styling trend. Well, maybe not quite a trend, but an interesting cult.
Someone at Fiat was jealous over the VW Golf?
This does look at what Fiat did here – take their “Rabbit” and give it a butt.
By early 1980s standards, this was not considered a silly idea. The general acceptance of four door hatches in the subcompact field, needed an evolution – hence the “trunked” versions of popular hatches. It seems that this was a European move, perhaps due to the fact that sedans weren’t drawn up when the subcompact hatches were designed? I don’t know.
I think you meant the Jetta which was the “Golf with a trunk” I would say that being 127 based this is more of a Brazilian VW Derby which was a Polo with a trunk.
Sticking a a trunk/boot on a hatchback was a logical line extension to attract buyers who disliked hatchbacks or wanted a bit more cargo space. From the A2 generation on the Jetta outsold the Golf in the US and the existence of the VW Gol based Voyage/Fox indicates the Brazilians also liked sedans more than hatchbacks. Ford did the same in the 80s with the Escort/Orion, Sierra/Sapphire and later Mondeo sedan and hatch. IIRC Vauxhall/Opel did a similar trunk graft on the Nova/Corsa and the Japanese typically had hatch and sedan versions of everything.
Conventional, spartan and remarkably style free for a Fiat. I like it.
The Oggi was a conceptual cousin to the Spanish Renault Siete. There wasn’t at the time a sedan in the lineup and Fiat launched a trunked 147 to fill the gap. It could be had with a 1300 or 1500, in Brazil the Alcohol option, and for export only, you could have a 1300 Diesel, which was the most common here in Uruguay. It was superseded by the Premio, a trunked Uno, around 1986, first only with 2 doors, then a true 4 door sedan a couple years after. Like the 147, the Oggi wasn’t the most reliable car, and the Diesel engine was a miser, but it was so wheeze, clattery and prone to failure only die hard fanatics wanted it afet a couple of years. The Diesel engine went on in the Uno for several years after being itself superseded by a 1.7
I totally dig that the Oggi (Italian for “today”) legit looks like it was built out of Legos.
Just glue rows of hockey pucks to the horizontal surfaces and you’re all set!
Not a bad looking little car. I’m surprised it has the “CUV/SUV” black plastic cladding all around the bottom and wheel arches. Don’t care for that, but it is what it is.
At the time, those plastics were used to mask the fact that the design was quite old…and tried to give a somewhat sporty visual. It was black but turned gray in a couple of years.
South America is the place to find interesting variants of other cars from everywhere. It surprises me that so few of their collector cars seem to make it north, over the equator.
A new one on me, as is the Fiat 147. Familiar with the story of ethanol powered cars in Brazil though.
I see a lot of my 1984 Jetta coupe in the basic body shell…A through C columns…but I suppose there’s only so much room for variation in a small car…
Brazil and Australia have been doing the same thing for a long time. Take over a US or Euro car, turn it into an entirely new car.
Both southern versions are more rugged than the northern originals, but the styling goes in opposite directions. Brazilian versions look better than the original, while Aussie versions look worse than the original.
You’re tarring Australia’s localised cars with much too broad a brush there, even if we disregard looks being a matter of taste.
Oh look here, I say, old chap, steady on!
It is all a matter of perspective, not to mention parochialism. From the bottom of the world, would you believe that a lot of US designs looked like the odd ones? Thus the same occurs in reverse from the top end of the planet. Daniel is right, but I would further add that styling is largely a matter of personal subjective taste, and even that is influenced by what is familiar to the person.
Very few Euro cars were ever transmogrified here, indeed, I can only think of the Holden Torana from the Vauxhall Viva. The original ’78 Holden Commodore came largely (externally) as designed by Opel. After that, from ’88, they were all indigenous. All the other ’50’s- ’80’s Holdens weren’t from taking over any US car; they were all their own thing, with increasing amounts of local styling but all signed off in Detroit – by Americans.
As for the slide from the US Falcon into any post ’72 ones, or the Valiant into the post ’71 ones, those are closer to your first line: and as to their looks, they look alright upside down here, where they’re familiar. Or were.
It’s recursive too, since there was a trunked sedan version of the original Fiat 127 – in fact the original model launched was the sedan. Much like the Ford Pinto, it had the same two-box semifastback shape as the hatchback which appeared later, and both enough later to create an extra splash of buzz the spring after the original launch but not so late to have not been part of the original design program.
So, the Oggi is a sedan derived from a hatchback derived from a sedan.
Chevy or Ford “Today”. Is that what you want?
There was even a sports version. The Oggi CSS.
CSS
As most home markets of European brands went towards hatchbacks, traditional countries which favoured saloons/sedans would necessarily get an awkward tacked on boot/trunk on their versions. Even in 90s Europe, when some B and C-Segment cars were available as saloons, they were barely five percent of sales.
Three of these would be perfect to take to a rugby match.
Anyone know if any carmaker ever made an Oi?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oggy_Oggy_Oggy