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Fiat 500 hits a 1.5 million milestone

11 November, 2015

Fiat produced just over 3.4 million of their classic 500 ‘Bambina’ cars between 1957 and 1975, and on November 10, the 1.5 millionth example of their modern 500 rolled off the lines at Fiat’s Tychy plant in Poland.

 

Confirming the popularity of the new 500, that impressive figure has been achieved in just eight years and four months following the car’s initial launch — and, today, the Fiat 500 is now for sale in more than 100 countries around the world, from Japan to North America and, of course, New Zealand. Interestingly, the UK accounts for more than 240,000 of the total number of 500s sold in Europe.

Check out the latest edition of New Zealand Classic Car for a full feature on a fully restored 1963 Fiat 500D.

Performance art

4 April, 2025

Shelby’s targets were Superformance — a South African company that wanted to sell its versions of these cars in the US — and the US-based Factory Five. Their defence was that the name and shape of the Cobra car were abandoned when Shelby American ceased production of these particular models back in the 1960s.
Shelby countered with: “We spent millions of dollars creating the name and the car and winning the world championship. These knock-off-car guys don’t deserve the credit or the profit for what my team and Ford accomplished in the ’60s.”
Superformance painted an even bigger target on its back by also producing a version of Shelby’s Daytona coupé. Other cars in its production stable were Mk1 GT40 and 1962 Corvette Grand Sport replicas, but we’ll focus here on the Daytona.

Design accord

28 March, 2025

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.