Yahoo Autos The Internal Combustion Fiat 500's Long Watch Has Ended
For 17 years, the retro-styled Fiat 500 has kept the spirit of Fiat's original city car alive as a sales hit throughout Europe. A new generation of electric model called the 500e was introduced in 2020, originally planned to be the ICE-powered 500's sole successor. Those plans have changed and a hybrid model based on the 500e is coming, but the 500 we know and love could not delay its end forever. 500 production is coming to an end, ending a run of nearly two decades.
The internal combustion 500 as we know it launched all the way back in 2007, before Fiat merged with Chrysler. The Panda-based city car survived that merger, then a series of other corresponding moves on the way to building Stellantis. The first Abarth performance models came in 2008, followed by the first convertibles in 2009 and the first official 500 EVs in 2013. Unlike the vast majority of Fiat products, the 500 was even sold in America from 2012 to 2019.
The life of the second-generation 500, oddly, has a lot in common with that of three very different Stellantis products. Like the 500, the Dodge Charger, Challenger, and Chrysler 300 trio were introduced as modern takes on a historic model before the 2008 recession. All four then lived a full, complicated life as volume sales hits that lasted through multiple mergers.
The Chrysler 300 has no successor yet, but both the 500 and the Charger/Challenger pair were initially only said to be replaced by new EVs as part of the Stellantis-wide push toward electrification. The Charger, in both four-door and Challenger-replacing two-door shapes, ended up getting a Hurricane inline-six anyway. Now, with the expected introduction of a 500e-based hybrid next year, the 500 follows the same path back to internal combustion.
Fiat produced more than 3 million 500s globally over the life of the car, just shy of the 3.89 million original 500s produced in the 1950s through 1970s. The brand's stock should last into mid-2025, in time for European customers to get their hands on the 500e-based hybrid model that will succeed it. American customers finally got their chance to get their hands on the electric 500e this year, but the hybrid model has not been announced for the U.S. market.
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