Montezemolo on the Fiat 500 and Stilo – debut in january 2007

The Fiat 500 was by far the most eagerly awaited car for 2006 by Autoblog.
it’s readers, so it’ll be a bit of a disappointment to hear the Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, Fiat’s president, saying that the Fiat 500 will be on the market in january 2007.

One can at least hope that it’ll be shown at one of the motor shows in late 2006.

A bit of good news for Italian car fans is that the new Fiat Stilo will debut at the beginning of 2007 too.

The announcement was made by Montezemolo during the annual Ferrari yearend dinner in Maranello.
To quote him in full:«In january 2007 the extraordinary new Fiat 500 will arrive in showrooms, and it’ll be 80 per cent equal to the concpet seen at the Geneva motor show in 2004 [the Trepiuno]; and the new Stilo, which will obviously get a different name»It’s incredible that no test mules have yet been seen of either model, with such a short time-to-market … Might the prototypes be well hidden in Poland (where the new 500 will be produced) and in Austria (where Magna Steyr is engineering the future Fiat hatchback) ?