We know what you are thinking, that nobody in their right mind would ever approve the development of a convertible based on the cheap Fiat Tipo model. But the Italians have done much stranger things, and we aren't talking about the distant past.
But first, let's look at the car that served as the basis for the latest rendering from Theophilus Chin. The Tipo name is shared between three different vehicles, a sedan, a hatchback, and a wagon. All of them are designed to be cheap, as most versions being bought are under €20,000.
The trade-off is that the engines aren't very powerful, and the features aren't of the same quality as something like a Ford Focus. However, at the end of the day, a new car is a new car.
To make the Tipo Cabriolet, Theo seems to have turned the sedan into a 2-door. It's not as beautiful as an Opel Cascada, but the appeal of a cheap open-air vehicle is there.
Producing it is equivalent to corporate suicide for Fiat, a company that only recently began to improve its European sales, thanks mainly to the Tipo and the 500X. Very few people would buy such a car, but that wouldn't have stopped CEO Sergio Marchionne a few years ago.
Let's look at some of the examples of bad ideas that should have never been approved. Number one on our list is the Lancia Flavia, essentially a re-badged Sebring Convertible that they believed was perfect for Europe. After that, we have the irrelevant Chrysler version of the Delta hatchback, followed by the Ypsilon.
Fiat also made a long wheelbase version of the 500L, developed twin-clutch gearboxes that were even more unreliable than VWs and made an underpowered Abarth Punto just for India. So you see, the Italians don't have "fiasco" and "dangerously bad idea" in their vocabulary. Unless you tell them not to, they might make this thing and kill a bunch of people in rollover accidents.
The trade-off is that the engines aren't very powerful, and the features aren't of the same quality as something like a Ford Focus. However, at the end of the day, a new car is a new car.
To make the Tipo Cabriolet, Theo seems to have turned the sedan into a 2-door. It's not as beautiful as an Opel Cascada, but the appeal of a cheap open-air vehicle is there.
Producing it is equivalent to corporate suicide for Fiat, a company that only recently began to improve its European sales, thanks mainly to the Tipo and the 500X. Very few people would buy such a car, but that wouldn't have stopped CEO Sergio Marchionne a few years ago.
Let's look at some of the examples of bad ideas that should have never been approved. Number one on our list is the Lancia Flavia, essentially a re-badged Sebring Convertible that they believed was perfect for Europe. After that, we have the irrelevant Chrysler version of the Delta hatchback, followed by the Ypsilon.
Fiat also made a long wheelbase version of the 500L, developed twin-clutch gearboxes that were even more unreliable than VWs and made an underpowered Abarth Punto just for India. So you see, the Italians don't have "fiasco" and "dangerously bad idea" in their vocabulary. Unless you tell them not to, they might make this thing and kill a bunch of people in rollover accidents.