I joined the Fiat Forum because my wife is potty about the new 500 and I wanted to check out a few things too.
It’s actually purely thanks to the Fiat 500’s birth that my wife passed her driving test two and a half years ago!
Having seen the new F500 in the motoring press and also hearing that local dealerships were going to be linked to the national UK launch party I was dragged there on a dark winter evening in torrential rain. We were fed on really good pastas though and got a good look around all the first models. Seeing the live party in London being broadcast at all the dealership too all helped give a sense of occasion to it. We also learnt that the build quality was good and safety features were impressive.
Uh-oh, one problem though, love the look of the car, want one, but no driving licence...
... Until exactly a year to the day of her first lesson! We’ve put things off like holidays and moving house, so she can save the rest needed to buy her “realistic, red Italian supercar beginning with F”. The time is nearly here as my 22year old run-around won’t last much longer. This means her first car (we did up a MOT failure, a Peugeot 106 known as her “silver dream-machine”) now comes to me and gets to stay in the family, so she’s happy about that.
We went to see Cars2 a couple of weeks ago – many cute smiling new Fiat 500’s in the Italian part of the film to be seen!
We got the e-mail today to tell us a limited amount of Ragamuffin paint is available again after the disasters in Japan halted production of the metal particles.
We can add to the Ragamuffin Red v Pasadoble Red queries so over to my wife for her expertise on that one!
Yes R-Red is the only colour car for my dream car. It’s also a colour that can be seen in most circumstances I think and doesn’t look like a grey sky. My silver dream machine was a lovely start to my driving lessons, but I swear it’s invisible on wet, grey days! I didn’t know the pearl/shimmer red had been out for a year until I saw a Ragamuffin Red on the dealership forecourt last summer! I immediately knew it wasn’t Pasadoble. By then I’d missed out on the Scrappage Scheme though, VAT went up, and now a summer price increase again, so I’ve been saving to add the difference onto my original £10K.
Pasadoble is a nice, true red, but it’s a flat one-dimensional red in comparison to Ragamuffin.
R-Red looks very similar if you see it on its own but if you put them side by side (I’ve seen this) the difference is so obvious – especially when the sun hits. R-Red shimmers slightly and seems to be a shade more towards an orange-red then, until it darkens over again as the clouds pass. It’s an optional extra, but I say worth it for the little surprise you get in the sun every so often. Also, Fiat dealership says the metallic paint is generally stronger, extra layers needed to achieve the finish, generally do make metallic paint the tougher choice, thus it should be more resilient to chipping.
The final decision before ordering, is to decide if the lower edge of the opening roof line is going to affect my line of vision or not. So I’m test driving an open roof on Monday, also to hear the noise levels.
It’s actually purely thanks to the Fiat 500’s birth that my wife passed her driving test two and a half years ago!
Having seen the new F500 in the motoring press and also hearing that local dealerships were going to be linked to the national UK launch party I was dragged there on a dark winter evening in torrential rain. We were fed on really good pastas though and got a good look around all the first models. Seeing the live party in London being broadcast at all the dealership too all helped give a sense of occasion to it. We also learnt that the build quality was good and safety features were impressive.
Uh-oh, one problem though, love the look of the car, want one, but no driving licence...
... Until exactly a year to the day of her first lesson! We’ve put things off like holidays and moving house, so she can save the rest needed to buy her “realistic, red Italian supercar beginning with F”. The time is nearly here as my 22year old run-around won’t last much longer. This means her first car (we did up a MOT failure, a Peugeot 106 known as her “silver dream-machine”) now comes to me and gets to stay in the family, so she’s happy about that.
We went to see Cars2 a couple of weeks ago – many cute smiling new Fiat 500’s in the Italian part of the film to be seen!
We got the e-mail today to tell us a limited amount of Ragamuffin paint is available again after the disasters in Japan halted production of the metal particles.
We can add to the Ragamuffin Red v Pasadoble Red queries so over to my wife for her expertise on that one!
Yes R-Red is the only colour car for my dream car. It’s also a colour that can be seen in most circumstances I think and doesn’t look like a grey sky. My silver dream machine was a lovely start to my driving lessons, but I swear it’s invisible on wet, grey days! I didn’t know the pearl/shimmer red had been out for a year until I saw a Ragamuffin Red on the dealership forecourt last summer! I immediately knew it wasn’t Pasadoble. By then I’d missed out on the Scrappage Scheme though, VAT went up, and now a summer price increase again, so I’ve been saving to add the difference onto my original £10K.
Pasadoble is a nice, true red, but it’s a flat one-dimensional red in comparison to Ragamuffin.
R-Red looks very similar if you see it on its own but if you put them side by side (I’ve seen this) the difference is so obvious – especially when the sun hits. R-Red shimmers slightly and seems to be a shade more towards an orange-red then, until it darkens over again as the clouds pass. It’s an optional extra, but I say worth it for the little surprise you get in the sun every so often. Also, Fiat dealership says the metallic paint is generally stronger, extra layers needed to achieve the finish, generally do make metallic paint the tougher choice, thus it should be more resilient to chipping.
The final decision before ordering, is to decide if the lower edge of the opening roof line is going to affect my line of vision or not. So I’m test driving an open roof on Monday, also to hear the noise levels.
