Automotive Design & Production is the one media brand invested in delivering your message in print, online, via email, and in-person to the right automotive industry professionals at the right time.
Issue link: https://adp.epubxp.com/i/517278
19 Ask someone who has worked someplace for more than a few years when they were hired. Chances are, the answer you'll get is a month and a year. Ask Danilo Tosetti, senior designer, and he responds, "Second of February, 2008." He adds, his English surrounded in an Italian accent, "I've been at Fiat for seven years. It has been a good experience for me. I like very much to be in Fiat because I am Italian and Fiat is Italian and creates original and iconic vehicles. It is my dream." And were you to be working your dream, you'd know precisely what your start date was, too. Tosetti, who attended Istituto Europeo di Design (European Institute of Design) in Turin, where he studied with a number of people who are now his colleagues, had an internship at Fiat in 2007. During that time, he designed a Fiat Panda, circa 2025. He recalls that this "very futuristic project" was intriguing to him because it helped him think about the role of and types of automobiles in the future. "I created something very, very simple," he says, a car that has autonomous driving capability. "It's like the Google car now," Tosetti remarks. The Fiat 500, which goes back to 1957, is, quite simply, an icon of Italian design. The 500 that is more widely known in the U.S. appeared in 2007. (It is interesting to note that the original 500 was named the Nuova 500, or New 500; there wasn't an "old" or otherwise existing model.) Today in the U.S., there are the 500, 500 Cabrio, 500 Abarth, 500e, and 500L. But Tosetti notes that at the start of the project, "the family of the 500 didn't exist." Realize that they were looking at making what is arguably a major addition to what really wasn't even a lineup at the time, so whatever they did would have an outsized impact. "We knew the strength of the 500, so we did everything we could to create something that was very 500, but at the same time very diferent. That was our challenge. We also wanted to communicate that the 500X would be a new way to be a Fiat." For one thing, this vehicle is substanti- ally larger than the 500, but so is the 500L*. But while the 500L is arguably a scaled-up 500 with an additional set of doors, the 500X is a crossover, which means that its stance is diferent than that of a car, small or large. So an objective was to keep the "500ness" of the original, but, at the same time, to break some new ground from the point u Tosetti says that he included various 500 design cues in this vehicle, such as the vertical tail lamps fanking the hatch. Around front, there are the round head- lamps and the "whiskers" that extend from the Fiat badge, and the clamshell hood. t Although the 500X is based on the same platform as the Jeep Renegade, although it has AWD capability, this is a stylish Fiat and as such if it is a crossover vehicle, it is an urban crossover. q Danilo Tosetti, Fiat senior designer, born in Asti, about 35 miles southeast of Turin, says, "I like very much to be in Fiat because I am Italian and Fiat is Italian and creates original and iconic vehicles. It is my dream." And his dream is manifest in the design of the Fiat 500X.