She’s a Beauty: Fiat’s New Hatch
This gorgeous looking hatchback is Fiat’s new C-Segment vehicle. It marks the successor to the short lived and rather unsuccessful Stilo, and is ready to strike deep into the territory of the Opel Astra and the Ford Focus. It returns to the Bravo-Brava nameplate, however, the naming scheme is a bit mixed up. The old five-door hatchback was called the Brava; the new car will only be available with five doors.
The Bravo looks a lot like a scaled-up version of Fiat’s Grande Punto, with the same Maserati-junior nose, cat’s eye headlamps and thin-lipped grille. Compared to the old car it’s bigger in all dimensions, particularly in length. A lot of the gain has been at the nose of the car in order to give it a graceful appearance, not to mention at back, in order to provide the car with a class-leading 400 liters of cargo volume. The car should be on the road in mainland Europe by early 2007 with a choice of diesel and gasoline motors including the new T-JET 150-hp, 1.4-litre engine, and the 1.9-litre 150-hp MultiJet diesel engine.