FIAT Bravo 2006 - new Bravo

Ako je sudeci po ovom tekstu, a mislim da boljeg izvora informacija u auto industriji nema, onda se Fiat-u smese jos bolji dani

Fiat keeps Bravo's costs down
Crucial new car will break even at just 75,000 units a year

Luca Ciferri | | Automotive News Europe / February 5, 2007 - 1:00 am

TURIN -- Fiat needs to sell only 75,000 units a year of its new Bravo hatchback to break even. It plans to sell 120,000.
The low breakeven point results from a decision not to install features "just for the sake of marketing or engineering pleasure," said Fiat Automobiles CEO Luca De Meo.

If Fiat wants to continue its recovery, the carmaker needs the Bravo to meets its target, which won't be easy in a segment that includes the Volks-wagen Golf, Opel/Vauxhall Astra and Ford Focus.

To keep costs down, De Meo said Fiat asked the same question while scrutinizing each of the Bravo's potential features: Would a buyer really want it?

Among the things customers will not be offered when the Bravo launches are:

Adaptive front lighting

A three-door variant.

"The additional investment required for a three-door version was higher than the potential additional sales," De Meo said.

In western Europe's lower-medium segment, 20 percent of buyers choose three-door hatchbacks, the other 80 percent buy five-door cars, according to industry data.

"We think we can lure three-door buyers to the Bravo because we are offering two more doors without asking buyers to pay a premium for them," De Meo said.

The fact that the Fiat Panda ? Europe's best-selling minicar ? is only available with five doors encouraged Fiat.

More light, less money

Fiat also found a simple, less expensive way to improve the Bravo's front lighting.

During cornering, the appropriate fog light automatically turns on, increasing lighting in the direction of the turn. Combining the fog light with the low beams of the headlights does not illuminate as wide an area as an adaptive system, but the cost to provide the feature was minimal.

"Since the car has electric power steering, we just added an algorithm that determines when the fog lamp should switch on," said Fabio Mingrino, head of the Bravo project.

The feature costs ?220 on the Bravo's Active trim line and is standard in more expensive versions of the car. Competitors such as the Astra and Focus offer optional adaptive front lights for prices ranging from about ?400 to ?1,200.

Another way Fiat kept the Bravo's costs down was by having it share its platform and more than 65 percent of its parts with the car it will replace, the slow-selling Stilo.

Because of the huge carryover, Fiat's total investment in the Bravo was ?350 million compared with ?900 million for the Stilo.

The Stilo's weak sales are partially blamed for Fiat Auto's huge losses in from 2001 to 2005.

Fiat installed capacity to build 400,000 Stilos a year, but the car never came close to that number. Its production peak was 187,610 units in 2002.

The Bravo launches this month. The car is a crucial part of the Fiat's strategy to sell 3 million units globally and achieve a 4 percent operating margin by 2010.

**BRABUS** · 21.02.2007, 19:54

Top Gear

There are 19,791 words in the new Fiat Bravo's official press info document, and not one of them is 'Stilo'. The closest it comes is at word 11,253, in the suspension section, where the press material refers to 'the previous segment C Fiat model'. 'Stilo', then.

The Focus rival that sold nowhere near as many as Fiat had hoped, and the car on which this new Bravo is based - it uses a developed version of the Stilo's chassis. But why write 'Stilo' when six awkward words like 'the previous segment C Fiat model' will do?

It sums up this heavy, overly-wordy, near-impenetrable and maddening pidgin-English nightmare of a launch press pack, but that's of no relevance to you. Message is: the Stilo is no more, and never was. This car has a new red corporate Fiat badge and a new name, so onward.

Fine, we'll follow suit and forget the Stilo, too. Time to look forward at this Bravo and find out how well it'll do in Europe's most fiercely competitive car market. Over 3,400,000 C segment cars were sold across Europe in 2006, of which 71 per cent were two-box saloons or hatchbacks; 25 per cent of the overall total went to corporate customers.

Fiat is hoping to be competitive with company buyers, an area where the Stilo floundered, so the trick will be to produce a car that will hold its value, one of comparable quality and value to the Golf and Focus - not to mention 307, C4, Astra and Corolla/Auris.

The new Bravo starts well because it looks good - it does to my eyes, anyway, and to those of the other motoring hacks on our pre-launch drive on and close to Fiat's Bolocco test track near Milan. You might think differently, but first impressions for most people are positive.

The new Bravo is distinctive and pretty, and far more interesting visually than either the Ford or VW - you could never mistake it for anything else. It starts with Punto-esque (and Maserati Coupe-esque) laid-back water-drop headlights and jutting grille on a long front overhang, and finishes with a curvy, Brera-ish rear behind a steeply upswept waistline.

Step inside and the emphasis on distinctive design continues - this is an attractive, stylish interior, one that blitzes the boring expanses of black that blight some of its rivals.

It perhaps uses a few too many textures for my liking, including a carbon-weave coloured slash across the middle of the dash, smooth plastic on the top of the doors and dash, dimpled plastic on the centre console, with grey and black switches, but the overall effect is interesting and far from bland. It's a pleasant place to spend time.

Most importantly, the materials seem of reasonable quality. Not quite up to VW levels, nor Ford for that matter, but it all seems well screwed together. The deep-set, chrome-rimmed dials are particularly attractive, and the graphics on them are simple and elegant.

I couldn't quite get comfortable in this left-hand-drive test car, because my right leg was jammed against the wide centre console when I moved close to the wheel - maybe right-hand-drive cars will be more accommodating for taller drivers.

Also, the steering wheel is offset, its right-hand edge further away than the left, and the seat base is too flat. You are perched on it, with only about two per cent of your buttock circumference in contact with the seat, your thighs in mid-air, unsupported. The steering wheel is well trimmed and attractive, but it was the only aspect of the driving position I really connected with.

We drove a 150bhp diesel version on this short spin on the fairly smooth roads near Bolocco. Like most diesels in this class, including the Golf, it's a relatively noisy unit, with plenty of gruff diesel cacophony bellowing into the cockpit.

But it goes well, the common-rail MJET engine pulling strongly from low revs and dishing out plenty of torque. The gearshift is OK, with a long but positive throw. It's a six-speeder on the 16-valve diesel, but you only get five speeds on the 120bhp 8v diesel.

I'm looking forward to driving the petrol-powered versions, especially the 150bhp, 1.4-litre FIRE turbo. This lightweight, efficient engine should suit the Bravo, especially given its responsive chassis - torsional stiffness is improved by 50 per cent over the outgoing Stilo, and you can feel it as soon as you move off.

The ride is good, and it seems Fiat has spent a lot of time and money on tuning the dampers. We'll wait to pass final judgement on the car's dynamics once we've driven it a long way on British roads, side-by-side with its competitors, but first impressions are of a first-rate ride/handling compromise. Here is the most obvious improvement over 'the previous segment C Fiat model'.

The electric power steering isn't bad, either - light, positive and direct, and like the Punto, it has a 'City' mode, which lightens it significantly for easier low-speed manoeuvring. The car isn't particularly easy to see out of, with its fat A- and C-pillars, but the sacrifice has been made for styling and it's probably a good call. Interior space seems only adequate.

The new Bravo took a scant 18 months to develop from scratch, which must be some sort of record for such an important mainstream car. You might wonder whether this is too short, but I think it's a positive sign - the designers and engineers were probably working at maximum efficiency, with minimum interference from middle management and focus-group obsessed marketing heads.

The use of state-of-the-art computer design meant that a lot of the dynamic testing was done virtually, and prototypes were only built at the end of the programme.

Overall, it's likely Fiat has got the package just about right, and it's likely that this car will help accelerate the company's excellent performance in Europe. There are shortcomings, but the bottom line is that if you like the looks, you won't be disappointed by the driving experience.

If Fiat can shake off its low-rent image in the UK, build it well and price it competitively - that is, make it obviously cheap to buy - the new Stilo will be a big hit. Sorry, Bravo. I meant Bravo.

**mirdza** · 27.01.2008, 18:30

Hajd da napisem nekoliko rijeci o novom Bravo

Relativno cesto vozim jednog 1.9M-Jet 105KS - prije dva mjeseca kupljen u firmi. Motor se ponasa sasvim OK ali ima primijetan lag sto pri tako maloj snazi ne bi trebalo da se dogadja. Performanse su zadovoljavajuce (nije problem drzati putnu brzinu reda 160-170km/h - nema buke i sl.). Kvalitet enterijera je odlican (kao sto sami ranije pisao) a nivo opreme mi se ne da da opisujem (dvozonska auto klima, navigacija, bluetooth telefon, ...)
E, a sad losa strana - ergonomija je "nula". Intuitivnost koristenja nekih elemenata - jos gora! Npr. morao sam da stanem i da proucim kako se podesava klima, a kada sam htio da podesim visinu svjetala ispostavilo se da je kontrola sa desne strane kokpita

I jos bezbroj takvih sitnica...
Sve u svemu - dok se nisam provozao bio sam odusevljen dizajnom i detaljima. Sada ga ne bih kupio, nema sanse!

BTW Imao sam priliku da vozim 1.4T sa sportskim paketom (ne sjecam se kako se zove taj nivo opreme). Motor je sjajan kao i 6-brzinski mjenjac ali sve su kvarile ranije navedene sitnice...

FIAT Bravo 2006 - new Bravo

FIAT Bravo 2006 - new Bravo

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