Sometimes English automotive magazine and web sites are given to flights of fancy on future develpments from Italian car makers. Once it might be a V10 from Ferrari. The next time it might 4Car saying that Fiat is planning a Settecento (700), a lengthened version of the future Fiat 500, with 5 doors.

I sincerely doubt it: the Fiat 500 will be based on a shortened version of the Fiat Panda platform. Why make a stretch 5 doors version to compete with the Panda, Fiat’s current second best seller ? The Fiat 500 has on its side the emotional attachment that Italians have for the old 500. A Fiat 700 would not have the same cachet. Much better to begin work directly on the estate and cabriolet versions that some photoshoppers have started circulating.

Doubts on the plausibility of 4Car’s anticipations are reinforced by their writing that the 500 might mount the 1.9 JTD engine, a 120-150 hp turbo-diesel, while the Panda still doesn’t have the 90 hp version of the 1.3 Multijet. I mean, in the glorious tradition of 500 tuners (Abarth, Giannini), such an engine would be fun to have, but it’s easier to imagine it transplanted by one of Germany’s current crop of crazy tuners, than to imagine it as standard equipment.

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