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NEWS
500L Living could join Fiat range in Oz
Australian Fiat importer considering viability of tiny seven-seat MPVFiat has unveiled its answer to the challenge of packing a large family into the one small car.
Named the 500L Living, Fiat's new seven-seat mini people-mover measures 4.35 metres long and has two additional seats missing from the 500L on which it's based. It's telling that Fiat's own UK press material states that the 500L Living will particularly appeal to kids – "to their eyes it will be attractively spacious."
And the converse of that is...?
While it might well be a tight fit for anyone taller than a pygmy, the longer 500L will accommodate 638 litres of luggage, its maker claims. No mention of whether that figure was established by folding the rear seats flat, or to what standard it's measured, but on paper at least that would place the car well ahead of similarly sized hatchbacks.
From launch, the Fiat 500L Living will offer four engines in total. Two petrol engines comprise a 1.4-litre 16-valve four-cylinder and the 0.9-litre TwinAir Turbo two-cylinder. The two turbo-diesels that make up the balance are both MultiJet II four-cylinders, one measuring 1.3 litres and the other displacing 1.6.
Two levels of trim for the car – Pop Star and Lounge – will be available in either five or seven-seat configuration, with up to 282 possible combinations of paint, interior trim and alloy wheel available. Leather, satellite-navigation and a reversing camera will be offered too.
The new model's global launch is scheduled for next month, but it may be 12 months or more before arriving in Australia – if it does indeed make it here.
"We are considering 500L [Living]... for the Australian market at the moment. If not only the spec level but the right pricing stacks up for Australia, the launch in right-hand [drive] would be at least 12 months away – so probably late '14 or early '15," Fiat's Director of Corporate Affairs in Australia, Karla Leach, told motoring.com.au.
Pricing information is not available ahead of the global launch, but Ms Leach suggests the Australian market would likely model its strategy for the car on Britain, assuming we see it here.
"Prices in the UK would give a good indicative level as to where we would sit it in the market," she said, but as yet even the pound sterling numbers are undisclosed.
Based on Fiat's recent initiative of bringing down prices of its cars in Australia, the 500L Living would need to slip into the country below a certain threshold. Given it would be positioned above the standard 500L, which is upmarket of the three-door 500, a starting price somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000 would seem to fit with Fiat's local product planning.
And since the 500L Living is to be built in Serbia, the landed cost should permit competitive retail pricing. Ms Leach acknowledges that the latest pricing for the 500 is a paradigm for future Fiat models in Australia, including the 500L Living.
"The 500 precedent is a strategy that is about bringing the right cars in the right spec at the right price to Australia," she said. "In order to keep all of our brands not only fresh, but relevant to more Australians, we need to do that.
"That's probably part of the reason we're still reviewing it, because if we can't get the right models at the right price, we don't want to bring them to Australia...
"Our strategy is about making it much more accessible, but also to be able to make it not only an emotional but an economic decision to buy a Fiat or an Alfa... A lot of people haven't been able to do that in the past."
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Written byKen Gratton
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