Fiat Cinquecento

The Fiat Cinquecento, Type 170, was a city car that Fiat made and sold from 1991 to 1998 over a single generation. It was a three-door hatchback for four passengers with a front engine and front-wheel drive, and it replaced the rear-engined Fiat 126. It was built at Fiat Auto Poland, which had made the 126, and its origins lay in 1980s research by the Italian National Research Council into a super-economical vehicle and in the Polish FSM studies that led to the Beskid 106 concept. Ermanno Cressoni designed it with Antonio Piovano, and it had independent suspension at both ends, front disc brakes, side impact beams and galvanised body panels. Engines were a 704 cc two-cylinder, a 903 cc four-cylinder and later the 1.1 litre FIRE, and from 1992 to 1996 there was an electric Elettra. The Seicento succeeded it.