There was a 5-min review of the new Fiat Croma on French tv this morning. Before seeing it my reaction would have been "who on earth needs or wants a big Fiat?", but it's actually not bad looking at all.
It's pitched as a cross-between an MPV and an estate - 5 doors, spacious, choice of 3 peppy multijet diesels. UK£15 grand-odd for the 1.9jtd
I'm so impressed with the build quality of my wife's Panda, maybe other Fiats are worth a look?! Surely there brand and reputation is so low, the only way is up?
Or is Fiat the next Rover....
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50% depreciation in two years would be my guess, if the old Croma is anything to go by. Fiat are in dire straits, financially, but they are too big to go under, or are they?
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If the marea is anything to go by i'd say more like 70% depreciation over 2 years. Even if it is a good car a lot of people will still be put off by the fact it's italian.
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I kept thinking "Signum" as I flicked through the gallery above,
to find that it is based on the Vextra, so its either the thinking man's Signum or vice versa.
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Big, ugly and won't sell, even if it a great car for comfort. Just like the Renault Vel Satis.
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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Autocar gave a 'first impression' to this car a little while back and they were less than impressed unfortunely.
Typical Fiat foblies including poor driving postion, poor quality plastics and seat trim, terrible ride and steering.
I think it's doomed before the start and the names not going to do it any favours either.
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I owned a couple of original Fiat Croma Tirbo's. Bought the pair of them for £500. Great drivers car. Somehow I dount the new one will be.
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I read often, only post occasionally
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I had a CHT. Huge amounts of fun and boot space. Could fit in kitchen table and arm chair with the seats folded down. I dreamt of owning a turbo :-)
The ride will be down to using MacPherson struts. They always feel different to other cars. Most other cars always feel boingy in a up and down sort of way. The fiats don't. They always feel more solid and attached to the road. The ride on the marea was abysmal though. I thought the croma was about right. Reasonably firm with just the right amount of body roll to give you an idea of when it was time to back off.
teabelly
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Not the Croma, but was reading Jason Dawes article in Sunday Times motoring today on the Fiat Ulysse. Is this one car they got right? See shed loads of black ones in the city (used by a well known courier company. Dawes rates it quite highly.
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The engine might be a FIAT bit but the rest of the Ulysse is surely a PSA vehicle (Pug 806/7 or Cit Synergie/Evasion/C8). Like tack I see lots of the Addison Lee one's in London, there's another firm, Bluetooth, using a fleet of Multiplas.
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If Punto means Point and Stilo means Style, what does Croma mean, if anything?
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As it is Fiat Croma might mean rust!
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I find it a real shame that Fiat have returned to the big car market with a vehicle that looks nothing out of the ordinary when the likes of Alfa Romeo can conjure up the new 159 saloon and Brea coupe.
I get the impression that Fiat are pinning their hopes on the new Punto, so lets hope it looks good inside and out as well as being fun to drive (and reliable).
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Sorry to revive an old thread, but i saw a newspaper ad for the new Croma today, and it just looked like a 5dr Stilo. Very bland.
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I wonder what the residuals will be like.
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As Rover, Citroen, Ford (Granada) and GM have proved if you are good at selling lots of small cars and your quality is so-so, your bigger cars will depreciate like mad as they have little cachet , don't appeal to buyers of brands and typically share the corporate syling which often fails abysmally on larger cars.
"Fiat are in dire straits, financially, but they are too big to go under, or are they?"
Unless they shift most of their production to Poland - anywhere but Italy - as long as Italy is a member of teh Euro Fiat will lose billions. They have lost market share at home and apart from the Panda all their other modles are nondescript or have customer issues - rust/reliability being the Fiat issues.
The high wage/low output Italian factories require major rationalisation .
As long as Italy runs a banking system stuck in the 19th century and an economics system based on the 1960s (keep inflation high, low productivity, don't tackle basic issues) Fiat will survive. Someone will always lend them money. But when it modernises, goodbye Italian jobs on a very large scale..
madf
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Seems to be a made up word , possibly meaning Chrome or a type of metal.
Don't take my word - I 've just asked one of my Italian staff and that was the answer he gave me...
I would not touch one with a bargepole - the last Fiat I drove was a Bravo or Brava as a holiday hire in Greece and it was carp.
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Realistically it´s a good car, nice diesels, cross between an estate and a 5 door hatch. HJ liked it in his review a couple of weeks ago.
But, and it´s a big but, who is going to buy a big new Fiat with their own money?
The image of the band KLF setting fire to 50 pound notes in a field a few years ago springs to mind.
Wait about 3 years for most of the production niggles to be sorted, then get an 18month old one. That should make sense(ish) as a private buy. Until then, in bocca al lupo to all the Fiat sales staff....
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I would not touch one with a bargepole - the last Fiat I drove was a Bravo or Brava as a holiday hire in Greece and it was carp.
Sounds fishy to me!
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I've had awful trouble in the past answering these questions.
Believe me, I'm trying so hard not to be cryptic or unnecessarily blunt.
The fact that you have doubts may be something within you that is trying to tell you something.
I wrote once before about a BBC Television programme that I watched as a lad. "Blue Peter".
You could make anything out of toilet roll cores, washing up liquid bottles and a bit of old sellotape (duct-tape, gaffer-tape).
Fiat clearly watched just the same programmes that I did.
I have seen engineering on Fiat cars that I truly cannot accept.
People in trouble. Umpteenth time back to the Dealer, who's lost a fortune recently and cannot offer goodwill.
Are you receiving me?
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Had a drive in one at a recent "Company Car In Action" or some such event, at Millbrook.
Car was very smart, spacious, nicely designed, etc.
I suppose that these cars would have been "even more meticulously put together than usual", this being a big - and I mean - BIG - marketing event.
Every time the car went around a left hand bend, or downhill, the exhaust scraped along the road, and the interior smelt like someone had left the lid off of the tin of isopon in the boot.
An excellent concept miserably executed and badly named.
I suppose, incidentally, that Croma means something like "Colour"?? Or would that be Chroma? Like Chromatic, PhotoChromic, etc.?
Who cares?
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What does Croma mean? Well,according to my Italian dictionary it means a quaver,presumably a musical notation. Incidentaly,modern day Fiats DO NOT RUST!
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Large Fiats especially the old type Croma were almost in the guiness book of records for the most depreciation in the shortest time !!
I'm not saying they are bad cars, but at the end of the day its the marketplace which decides the value.
If you buy one thats a couple of years old for 'peanuts' money I suppose you would be okay.
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