FIAT & BMW JV car to be revealed in Frankfurt
March 17, 2009 by Matt Brogan
FIAT and BMW are set to reveal their new joint-venture city car at September’s Frankfurt Motor Show.
To be marketed as both the BMW Isetta and FIAT Topolino respectively, the newly developed car will not simply be re-badged one way or the other, but instead will share a common platform – in much the same way Mazda and Ford have done with their Mazda2 and Fiesta models.
After the September debut, the cars will be scheduled for sale in 2011 with the four-seat BMW variant to be sold as an EV (Electric Vehicle) using the same setup as featured in the upcoming MINI E.
It is beleived at this point the FIAT version will opt for a traditional petrol engine.
Print it: 
I have been thinking how great it would be for bmw to produce a car that EVERYONE can afford. I know there is the 1 series but that is unfortunately still out of peoples range.
hopefully this will get BMW into more and more driveways.
Any clue on pricing??? It looks pretty small!!!!!!!
^Just because it is a tiny car, doesn’t necessarily mean it will be priced at a position everyone can afford.
“Myke Says:
March 17th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
^Just because it is a tiny car, doesn’t necessarily mean it will be priced at a position everyone can afford.”
It kind of has to be though or else no one will buy it.
In peoples minds small = cheap. I’m sure it will be more expensive than the FIAT version but I think it will be within everyone’s budget that’s looking for a small quality car and is willing to pay a bit more because of the BMW badge.
I am looking forward to electric cars. I think it will be a large market. But it won’t be a long term fix. As hydrogen cars become available i believe they will win favor with drivers. Mostly because they wont require to be filled up as often and it does not take as long.
I want one……….its sooooooooooooo cuuuuuuuuuute !
Funny how like the original one this to is coming from Italy heritage .
Glad they dont have the door opening out the front like the original. Was the Isetta the first of the micro cars made ? From what I found it was .
The originals look soooooooooo weird !
Ughhh. I’m disgusted. Looks as bad as the Proton Savvy. Well, maybe a bit better than the Savvy. Horses for courses I guess…
And here ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
*Shakes head and ignores biting back *
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*Scratches his head thinking what is she on about*
Yianni, it really doesn’t need to be affordable. It probably will be but it will sell regardless. I predict a starting price of about $30,000. I’d buy one. The BMW that is.
Those are terrible mock ups! The headlights are off the 500 and the side windows are off the Ka.
30K? I was thinking this should be in the 20K price range. Unless it packs leather, satnav, climate and all that sort of stuff, you’d be getting an econobox with a badge. Ridiculous.
There has been a few electric car articles on here lately so I won’t repeat myself. But in my opinion at the moment electric cars are a dumb idea.
Europeans cant make cheap cars……There I said it!
Ha Ha Funny Elitist try looking harder Ford Ka £7K.
BTW, the Fiat will be made in Serbia. As for the BMW, who knows ;).
Elitist, you are wrong. I think what you meant is that the Europeans can’t import a car cheaply enough to make it cheap by the time it’s on sale in Australia. It’s actually Australia’s fault, not Europe’s.
And you didn’t say it, you wrote it. If you did say, I’m sure that anybody else in the room at the time was slightly confused.