Fiat 600 design review: ‘Product of twenty years of nostalgia and safe choices’

This is what twenty years of Trepiuno evolution looks like:

From the photos above it is clear that when the new 500 is compared with the 600, it has a sharper and more assertive face. According to Fiat this is an improvement. Previously I wrote about the change in attitude between the old and new Renault 5, a comparable car in a similar segment.

Why an aggressive personality?

The question is why the Renault 5 and the Fiat 500 and 600 get an aggressive personality in their new guises. The simple, accessible, friendly character of these cars has partly disappeared. The self-confident car is a striking trend. Apparently, as consumers, we ask for it: the marketing teams that send briefings to car design studios always write them based on thorough research.

Today’s consumers seem to value a powerful and dominant appearance. Do the uncertain times we live in call for assertive, confident cars? Product design reflects broader societal changes. When President Kennedy proudly announced that a man was going to land on the moon, cars were quickly equipped with increasingly larger rocket taillights and wings. So now there is a need for security and protection in a world that is experienced as increasingly unpredictable. Bas van Putten also recently referred to this phenomenon in his AutoWeek column and discussed how the design choices of car manufacturers are directly related to prevailing sentiments.

Technological progress also plays a role. Modern cars are equipped with advanced technologies and safety features that require space, so cars are growing. Technology has also made a much larger spectrum of shapes possible for designers. Where previously only round glass lenses were possible, almost any shape can be produced thanks to plastic injection molding technology.

In any case, cars don’t necessarily become happier – and neither did our 600e.

The renewed light signature of the 600 has a focus in the light unit, through the shutline of the hood, in a similar way to how it was done with the 500e.

A beautiful piece of sculpture, that headlight, with the island of sheet metal attached to the unit. However, the innovation and individual character compared to the 500e is very minimal. At the back you can see a possibly even more minimally developed LED unit. Fiat is clearly playing it safe with this design.

Also compared to the 500X, the progress in this design is somewhat lacking to the untrained eye.

The 600 is well executed, pleasing in its proportions and surfacing solutions. However, he embodies yet another cautious iteration of the twenty-year-old Trepiuno. Nostalgia and safe choices, instead of innovation, which was at the origin of the original 500. It is important that car manufacturers dare and continue to take risks and distinguish themselves through relevant designs. That is precisely why the first Panda became a huge success. Fiat’s choice to stick with a proven but now exhausted concept could cost the brand market share.