A Real Estate: FIAT Tipo SW Review

[GTPNewsWire]

This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:

A Real Estate: FIAT Tipo SW Review

This article was published by Andrew Evans (@Famine) on November 13th, 2017 in the Cars category.

 

[Obelisk]

I'm going to guess this car was loaned to you by Fiat (i.e. free) and post this:

 

[PD4WG]

Which country didn't get the Bravo? I'm guessing you're in the UK judging by the plates but we definitely got the Bravo over here - even though it wasn't sold for as long as it was in other countries.

 

[zdenko]

Diesel + Manual + Wagon.
Something we just don't get in Australia so easily now. Actually Manual + Wagon is generally non existent these days or even wagons in general.
Everyone here buys those stupid little SUV's instead. Worse handling, less space and more fuel. What's not to like.

 

[Famine]

Which country didn't get the Bravo? I'm guessing you're in the UK judging by the plates but we definitely got the Bravo over here - even though it wasn't sold for as long as it was in other countries.

We did, but it was for about ten minutes as you say (I think it was literally 2007-2008, officially, with the odd car thereafter). FIAT very quickly retired it, leaving us with the Grande Punto as the biggest car before the 500L and 500MPW turned up.

I recall FIAT actually floated the idea of a Bravo Estate as far back as 2007, but it never materialised - so the Tipo SW is the direct successor to the Stilo Estate.

 

[PD4WG]

Yeah that's true, there never was an estate Bravo. I think they did a similar thing to what they did with the Grande Punto more recently : Remove all but the most pathetic engines and sell it in tiny numbers.

 

[Beeblebrox237]

We did, but it was for about ten minutes as you say (I think it was literally 2007-2008, officially, with the odd car thereafter). FIAT very quickly retired it, leaving us with the Grande Punto as the biggest car before the 500L and 500MPW turned up.

I recall FIAT actually floated the idea of a Bravo Estate as far back as 2007, but it never materialised - so the Tipo SW is the direct successor to the Stilo Estate.

My (very brief) research implies that the UK got the Bravo from 2007 to 2014:
https://www.parkers.co.uk/fiat/bravo/
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?sort=year-desc&radius=1500&postcode=ls29ng&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly New&onesearchad=New&make=FIAT&model=BRAVO&year-from=2007

 

[Dennisch]

Another generic vehicle for an already saturated generic market.

 

[VXR]

These look great as 4-doors on the continent. Although strangely, I can recall seeing several in June, but not at the start of this month when I was in Malaga province.

 

[davisan]

We bought that car last two yers ago and it is realy very practical car

 

[TenEightyOne]

We did, but it was for about ten minutes as you say (I think it was literally 2007-2008, officially, with the odd car thereafter).

Didn't we get the Bravo and Brava in the mid 90s, or am I misrembrifying?

 

[VXR]

Didn't we get the Bravo and Brava in the mid 90s, or am I misrembrifying?

You're quite right. 5dr was Brava.

 

[TenEightyOne]

You're quite right. 5dr was Brava.

Am I also right in remembering that they were hideous ****boxes?

 

[Famine]

Didn't we get the Bravo and Brava in the mid 90s, or am I misrembrifying?

Yes, from 1995. The question however related to the hiatus in C-segment models after the Stilo as mentioned in the review (from November 2017... weird):

Several things all at once. Firstly, this car is FIAT’s return to the C-segment — family hatchbacks like the Ford Focus and Volkswagen Golf — at least in the UK. The brand has been concentrating on small hatchbacks like the Punto and Panda, and myriad different versions of the 500, leaving its larger offerings to wither on the vine. Some European countries had a larger Bravo model, but we’ve been without a family FIAT since the it killed off the Stilo in 2007.

The Bravo three-door and the cat-claw rear-lighted Brava five-door fastback (and Marea five-door saloon or estate) were succeeded in 2001 by the Stilo (three- and five-door, and estate). FIAT killed that in the UK in 2007.

There was, briefly a successor Bravo model, which was rather confusingly a five-door. FIAT introduced it to the UK in 2007 but only marketed the car through 2008. It looks like the car wasn't actually withdrawn from sale until 2014 - but FIAT essentially ignored the car after it gave the FA a bunch of them in 2010. Unlike the Marea and Stilo, there was no estate version.