The hybrid ‘Fiat 500’ that became a Daewoo

As its name indicates, the Cinquecento (Italian for 500) was intended as a spiritual descendant of the Fiat 500. However, Fiat decided to present the city car of the 90s completely on the basis of the design style that was applicable at the time. Also technically, the Cinquecento looked little like its distant ancestor. The engine was simply in the front and drove the front wheels. Its – compared to other cars of the time – simplicity and small size were actually the biggest similarities.

ID Cinquecento

Italdesign ID Cinquecento

Yet in 1992 there was also a car that was a lot more reminiscent of the original 500. The ID Cinquecento, put on paper by design house Italdesign. That had been commissioned by the ANFIA, the Italian car industry association, to give the recipe of the Fiat 500 a retro jacket. Fiat itself was also behind that invitation, even though it already brought the Cinquecento on the market at the same time. Italdesign’s design study could be a harbinger of an eventual more modern successor to the Cinquecento. People were already thinking ahead, you might say.

The gentlemen and ladies of Italdesign had a great time. The result was a compact city car with a decent wheelbase for its length. The ID Cinquecento had virtually no overhangs. Of course this had to do with the interior space: it had to be as large as possible. A large windscreen for its size and also considerable side windows provided a lot of light in the interior, to further increase the experience of space. Where the Cinquecento almost seemed drawn with a ruler, the ID Cinquecento was full of cheerful round shapes, something that would come to a peak in car design in the 90s. All in all, the ID Cinquecento looked clearly more modern than the regular Cinquecento.

Lucciola

Italdesign Lucciola

It looked so promising that Italdesign started developing the concept further. That led to the Lucciola in 1993. A concept car that still closely resembled the ID Cinquecento, but was much more detailed and also received some new styling elements. For example, the rectangular headlights made way for round ones, which made the car look a bit more like the original 500. It also now had a flashy interior. Four yellow-blue seats that could be turned completely around, with which you transformed the Lucciola into a kind of sitting area for four people.

The appearance and interior was not the only striking thing about the Lucciola. The technique was also special. The Lucciola had a tiny 0.5 two-cylinder diesel that produced 7.5 hp power, but also two 9.5 hp electric motors. So a real hybrid. This made it possible to reach a top speed of 100 km/h. Not great, but the car was mainly intended for the city. What was relatively impressive, when you consider that the Lucciola was already developed almost thirty years ago, is that you had to be able to drive it purely electrically for 50 kilometers.

daewoo

You would say that Fiat had its sheep on dry land by using the Lucciola as an example for the eventual successor to the Cinquecento. Yet the brand did not. Fiat decided to develop the Cinquecento into the Seicento, instead of starting a whole new story when the Cinquecento came to an end. However, the Lucciola had attracted the attention of a manufacturer that had to start all over in this segment from scratch and had little experience with designing a car from A to Z itself: Daewoo. That had only brought its first car into the world with the Lanos in 1996 (before that it was mainly converted GM models). With the Lucciola there was already a nice basis, which was finely ground by Giugiaro into a production model: the first Matiz. It came on the market in 1998 and so there was still a production follow-up for the ID Cinquecento and the Lucciola. With success, because the Matiz became quite a success worldwide.

Daewoo Matiz

The ‘Fiat that became a Daewoo’, by the way, stood in the showroom next to ‘the Jaguar that became a Daewoo’. You can read how that works here.