The car we now know as the Fiat Cinquecento started life as a Fiat project in the early 1980's, and like many of its predecessors project X1/79 was to be a car of the future but unlike other X projects such as the mould breaking X1/9 and X2/0 (which became the Lancia Beta Monte Carlo), the design brief of this model was that of a small city car, diminutive, cheap to build, cheap to run, moreover a car that could succeed and captivate buyers of small cars across Europe where the Fiat 126 had perhaps failed. The design team's main goal then was to re-introduce to the car buying public, the ingredients that made the car that the 126 evolved from such a success, in other words a modern day 500 or to give it its true Italian name "Cinquecento". The evolutionary process to create the Cinq seems to have spanned a period larger than 10 years, it could be said perhaps that trying to recreate a new small worldbeater similar to the previous 500's was a much greater task than anyone anticipated, but also and more correctly I feel that the ideas and engineering for the car were already in place (way ahead of their time) in the early 1980's, it was more a case of waiting for the correct economic climate which demanded such cars. Towards the end of the 80's the market for such mini-cars (which had all but dried up even in Italy) suddenly returned, fortunately Fiat had already wisely gambled money (at a time when funds were short) on a project that could so easily have come to nothing, most of the development work had already been done, all that was required was to produce the car in a suitable up-to-date facility.

The contract to build the car with FSM in Poland was signed at the end of 1987, with Fiat investing more than $800 million to create a state of the art facility for manufacture of the Cinquecento. An enormous re-industrialisation and modernisation programme commenced concentrating mainly on the manufacture of the body-shell or monocoque with automatic robotised production lines, mechanised and automatic panel presses, robotised glazing machinery, self-propelled component trolleys, automated stores facilities, state-of-the-art paint and shell galvanisation facilites, and also new automated equipment for dimension and quality control checking. Production from the Fiat Auto plant in Tychy, Poland began in April 1992. Some 840 Cinquecento's per day were being produced, 75 percent of which were destined for export, with over one million Cinquecento's being created before the eventual demise of the model in mid '98 in favour of the mechanically similar Seicento which offered improvements in build quality, styling, and safety. Yet before the Seicento commenced production the plant underwent a major refit to ensure it was still at the cutting edge of automobile mass production in Europe, proof (if needed) of Fiat's massive commitment to this sector of the market, a sector in which Fiat held a massive 66.7% share in Europe during 1991. Also worthy of note is the fact that the facility at Tychy has an extremely youthful workforce boasting an average age of just 30 years

The bodyshell of the Cinquecento is 100% galvanized on exterior panels to combat corrosion, whilst components not exposed to the outside world are treated with an electrophoretic coating to minimize any possible risk of rust. The clever "wheel at each corner" chassis design and compact rear suspension coupled with the upright shape of the bodyshell give an amazing amount of interior space for such a small car. Like most vehicles nowadays the Cinquecento is endowed with the usual 6mph impact absorbing bumpers, front and rear crumple zones, side impact bars and a fuel cut-off system, with seatbelt pre-tensioners and a drivers-side airbag being available only as extra-cost options.

The car`s structure was designed to exceed present and immediate future European crash standards but as ever safety protection is somewhat lacking in cars of this type due to the minimal size, pure intuition tells you that the closer you are to the point of impact the higher the chance of some kind of injury being sustained, safety (or the lack of it) was one of the main criticisms leveled at the Cinquecento and one of the main points improved upon in the Seicento design. Crash performance could only be described as average but given the design's age you could say it was good for it's year, it's Seicento successor gained a lowly 1.5 stars in NCAP testing in the late '90's and unfortunately was the car offering the least protection on their listing for some time.

You may have noticed that over the years the Cinquecento Sporting and especially now the Seicento Sporting are advertised to appeal to women drivers as a cheap but fun car with some extras but as I drive aound the country, I have noticed that virtually all Cinq Sportings and many Seicentos are driven by men presumably because the first one to the keys in the morning gets the Sporting (recently backed up by a readers letter in AutoItalia magazine) perhaps therefore it's time Fiat re-thought who it aims its advertising campaigns at ?

Another interesting fact is that throughout its production life the Cinquecento Sporting was extremely well sought after and that Fiat were able to sell every Sporting almost before it was made, to the point in the UK where supply was always outstripped by demand and yet never greatly expanding its production facility thus cleverly avoiding the costly overproduction/stockpiling problems suffered by Ford and other major manufacturers in the mid to late 90's and even now in late 2004 as production of the New Panda is carrying on from Tychy at a pace Fiat are able to sell every car shipped to the UK due to clever pricing and moreover the cheap running costs making that car irresistable to many.

source: http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/ajwebster/car.html
*Note* Used without Permission from site owner. Will remove if requested to.