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First reviews, more pictures of the latest, hottest cars |
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| Fiat Bravo Beautiful, Practical, With Amazing Engines But “Which?” Report On Punto Reminds Us To Take Care |
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“The Bravo is impressive, beautiful and practical with fantastic, high-tech engines. But I won’t be recommending it until I see some evidence from surveys like “Which?” prove Fiat has changed” The new Fiat Bravo is the best little Fiat I’ve come across. It is so good that I was almost tempted to go out on a limb and ignore masses of experience and evidence that Fiat is a recidivist as far as making promises about quality it can’t keep are concerned. In fact, I was about to end the habit of a lifetime and recommend you buy this terrific little Fiat, until I spied the latest survey from “Which?” magazine. The survey, of breakdowns, faults and niggles, questioned almost 100,000 “Which?” members, and came just in time to save my blushes. Propping up the table of Superminis with 85 per cent satisfaction is the Fiat Grande Punto, languishing three points behind the Seat Ibiza. The Grande Punto, one size smaller than the Bravo, has led an amazing financial turnaround for Fiat, turning it from a chronic loss-maker into a profitable company for the first time in years. So the public clearly likes the Grande Punto. And it’s not clear just how damning this new report is. But you can’t hide this fact. There are 22 other Superminis ahead of the Fiat. The table is led by my current top recommendation, the Honda Jazz. The overall corporate winner is Honda. Bottom is Land Rover, followed by Renault and Fiat. “Which?” sums up its Supermini results thus. “Fiat seems to have learned little from the last-generation Punto’s reliability woes. The new Grande Punto is poor for reliability with an overall score of just 85 per cent.” I’m not sure how seriously these surveys should be taken. But it does temper ones judgement when looking at the Bravo, which on a superficial level, passes all the tests. Fantastic engines The car’s style will captivate you. From the front, the design hints at Maserati. From the side the car’s waistline sweeps upwards towards the rear with the small rear windows exaggerating the sporty effect. This is the first small car for a long time where the most impressive engine uses petrol. The 1.4 litre T-JET turbocharged petrol engines come in two versions, one developing 150 bhp and another 120 bhp. The 150 bhp version produces diesel-like flexibility and great responsiveness, accompanied by an attractive exhaust note. Fiat says this motor gives the performance of a 1.8 to 2.0 litre engine but with a reduction in fuel consumption of between 10 and 20 per cent. Fiat said the T-JET engines need less maintenance than conventional petrol engines, with the first service due at 18,000 miles-30,000 kms. Bravo buyers will also have the choice of five power plants, including 3 petrol versions – 1.4 litre 150 bhp, 1.4 120 bhp and 1.4 90 bhp. There are two diesels - a 1.9 litre 150 bhp or a 1.9 litre 120 bhp. Prices start at £10,995-€16,250 for the 1.4 90, although this is a bit of a loss leader, I would say. Every model bar the loss-leader has an impressive level of equipment including ABS brakes, air-conditioning, remote central locking, six airbags, electric front windows, CD player, fog-lights and “follow-me-home” headlights. Blue & Me On the road the car impresses. The 150 petrol felt very sharp, with a terrific gearbox and steering. Interior quality was excellent and the dashboard design attractive. There was limited space for rear passenger’s heads and feet. The six-speed gear box on the most powerful diesel was lumpy and stiff. The luggage space is ample although the rear seats don’t fold flat without an optional extra. Fiat said the Bravo had been brought to market exceptionally quickly – only 18 months since design freeze. This was also helped by using a substantial amount of Stilo underpinnings, and the use of computerised designs which eschew actual production models.
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When the car was launched to the international media back in January, Fiat Auto brand chief Luca De Meo expressed the usual corporate confidence in the future, making clear that although the Bravo’s sales target was modest, it still represented a more than doubling of Fiat’s share of the European C segment, small family cars like the VW Golf and Vauxhall/Opel Astra. “”We’re going for 2.5 to 3 per cent of the C segment,” De Meo said. “Our target is to sell 120,000 per year, and then we’ll see,” although he didn’t say when this target would be reached. De Meo was speaking after a launch celebration that was lavish even by car manufacturer’s standards. A couple of thousand journalists and dealers were housed in a massive tent in the Stadium of Marble in Rome, where artists and tumblers from Le Cirque du Soleil did their stuff. Easy target Investment banker Citigroup agrees Fiat’s target will be met easily. “Expectations for the Bravo are considerably above the company’s 120,000 figure, and the addition of a second body style, an estate, also suggests internal expectations are now higher,” Citigroup said. Sabine Blumel, London-based autos analyst with Italian Banca IMI believes the new Bravo will help Fiat regain its position in the C-segment. “The new Bravo is the Fiat brand’s much needed opportunity to regain credibility in the C segment. The timing of the launch is opportune - maintaining sales momentum set by the Grande Punto and taking advantage of the fact that key competitors are ageing. Low volume targets of 70,000 in 2007 and 120,000 in a full year are matched by low investment of €350 million,” said Blumel. Fiat has previously said it expects to win an overall 8 per cent of the European market in 2007. Its market share in 2006 was 7.7 per cent. An increasing share of the C segment is crucial to Fiat Auto’s long term plans to raise profits. “It is the only segment that gives two things to automakers: volume and profitability,” De Meo said in his speech. Four key points Blumel said the Bravo had four key selling points. “1) Design/style, a five-door coupe with hatchback looks, roomy for its class. 2) Quality. 3) Performance. 4) Affordability.” Some experts though have their doubts, pointing to Fiat’s lack of a serious player in this sector for some years. “It will be difficult for the Bravo. A (Stilo-type) disaster could repeat itself,” investment banker Sanford Bernstein’s Nicla Di Palma told Reuters. Fiat’s modest sales targets for the new Bravo shows it has learned its lesson the hard way from the botched Stilo launch, which almost bankrupted the company. The Stilo had an over-ambitious target of 400,000 annual sales by 2003, which Fiat set at the car’s launch in 2001. The Stilo not only had over-ambitious targets. It was also charged with beating the opposition like the Volkswagen Golf and Ford Focus with features from the premium sector including sliding and reclining rear seats, radar cruise control, speed limiter, and a device called “Easy Go”, which unlocked the car when the owner approached. But Fiat had badly misjudged its market, which wanted basic and well-priced cars before expensive gizmos, and it missed the sales target by more than a third in 2002 and 2003 for a cumulative loss of almost 250,000 sales, and devastated the Stilo’s economics. “Which?” doesn’t augur well The Bravo, superficially, seems to do the job, although only time will tell whether it is meeting customers’ aspirations. The survey from “Which?” on the Punto doesn’t augur well. The press material for the Bravo does include many hostages to fortune when it keeps talking about “exemplary build quality”, “consistently high build quality”, and “reinforcing the quality”. Fiat has also changed the corporate logo, always a worrying sign of desperation. At least, they didn’t make the mistake of designing the logo to look like the centre of a ubiquitous urinal design, as British Leyland did in the 1970s. The Bravo is a very impressive, beautiful and practical little machine with fantastic, high-tech engines. But I won’t be buying one, or recommending others take the plunge, until I see some evidence from surveys like “Which?”, which prove Fiat’s brave words reflect real, rather than hoped for change. Neil Winton – July 20, 2007
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