Long time no Fiat column…
Seems like only yesterday, KC Confidential was all over the triumphant return of Fiat to the United States. You may recall that in addition to covering the return of the Italian carmaker to America – as a result of Fiat’s rescue of the now wildly successful Chrysler – I made an impulse buy and signed on to buy one of the first 500 "Prima Edizione" Fiat 500s, sight unseen, price unknown.
Pretty smart, huh?
As the months dragged by, I reported on the tiny car (seven inches shorter than a Mini Cooper) and defended the little bugger against all comers in KCC‘s caustic, few-holds-barred comments section.
Was I totally gay? Did I not know Fiat stood for "Fix it again Tony?" Why not do the right thing and buy a Mini?
Even former KCC sports scribe Greg Hall laid into me in his farewell column, "The Top 10 Reasons Greg Hall Left KC Confidential."
"Hearne promised (me) a Fiat 500 but the delivery date turned out to be December 2015…in Rome."
The indignity of it all.
Well, the worm has officially turned. Not only did Fiat outsell the Cooper in just eight months of its first year – 26,000 versus 25,000 for the Mini in its first 12 months during much better economic times – Fiat knocked the cover off of the ball Sunday with its "Seduction" ad during the Super Bowl.
But don’t take my word for it…
"Fiat Super Bowl Ad Most Effective in Boosting Traffic," reads the headline today at respected automotive information provider Edmunds.
" In its first real-time analysis of the impact of auto advertising during the 2012 Super Bowl, Edmunds.com said the three most effective ads, in terms of driving Web traffic during the telecast, were Fiat (500) Abarth, Lexus GS 350 and Chevrolet Sonic.
"Edmunds measured real-time traffic increases to advertisers’ model pages at seven different periods during the game: The start of the game (the end of the pre-game analysis), the end of the first quarter, the end of the second quarter, the beginning of the third quarter, the end of the third quarter, the end of the fourth quarter and the end of the post-game show."
On the local front, the phone lines exploded Monday at Fiat of Olathe with interested parties vying to get in line to buy the smoking hot little Abarth performance edition of the 500.
And why not?
It may be a couple tenths of a second slower to 60 than the Mini Cooper S, but the sexy Super Bowl ad combined with the sexy, Italian, nobody-else-has-one Abarth, combined with a 50 percent larger trunk and more rear seat legroom proved to be an irresistible combination.
The bottom line: "The numbers suggest the most entertaining Super Bowl ads are not always the most effective," Edmunds concludes. "Although we did find the 500 Abarth ad hit the mark on both counts."
Face it, when you’ve got a sexy ad that already went viral with well over 3 million hits and nobody speaking English, what’s not to like?
Or as one commenter on Edmunds says of the ad, "That’s what happened to me when I drove a 124 Sport Spider in 1973. I took her home and loved her for 14 years. I still miss her."
Guess what? She’s back.
This looks like what Ali G and the East Staines Massif drives. They are both based on the Panda/Punto platform.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmcO-mZuIjg
26,000 fans can’t be wrong
Had you taken the difference in mileage of your previous vehicle, the cost of the new vehicle and calculated how many miles you would have to drive before you realized a return on your investment for more mileage you would have found you lost money by trying to save money.
Count in the extra pollution from the new vehicle vs the already-carbon-foot-printed older vehicle and you would find you are FUBAR on any save-the-planet BS.
Official results in the King of the Dipshits contest between Mini & Cooper show how easy it is to be a sucker for something shinny.
But Skip Sleyster continues to smile down on you.
I might drive this Mini http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMWFdGjNOZI
Should have read 19,769 fans.
NT
The SINGLE best ad of the Super Bowl
….and a GREAT little car that will only get better with the Abarth edition. I happen to love it and Im not as gay as you are! I had a 124 as well and had no more problems that most of the other odd ball foriegn stuff I’ve owned. I ran the gamut from a 914-6 Porsche to the Jensen Interceptor with 30 or 40 more examples inbetween, including an Alpine!
This is going to be a great car!
Haven’t they been showing that ad for quite sometime?
Yes, the ad’s been out a couple months or more
With more than 3.6 million views online, it was a smash. But for most folks – like more than 100 million of them, it was viewed for the first time.