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Fiat 500: Suspension tweak and 2-pot engine

The Fiat 500 is to get stiffer suspension and a range of 2-pot engines It’s not hard to see why the Fiat 500 has been a runaway success. It has the cute factor going on, but on the right side of pastiche; prices are much more reasonable than its rival in the ‘small car icon revisited’ stakes – the MINI, and Fiat have done a sterling job on the marketing side. And it’s not just been the tin-top, bog-standard  Fiat 500 that’s flown out of showrooms.

Dany Bahar wants £6.7 million compensation from Lotus

The Dany Bahar saga at Lotus continues with Bahar claiming £6.7 million compensation for his firing as Lotus CEO. Back in May, ex-Ferrari man Dany Bahar was ousted as CEO of Lotus, confirmed a month later by Lotus parent DBR-Hicom who appointed Aslam Farikullah – an engineer, not a marketing man – to oversee a way forward for Lotus, and just last week Lotus put Bahar’s custom Esprit up for sale. But that appears not to be the end of dealings between DBR-Hicom and Bahar as Bahar has issued proceedings against his former employers seeking compensation of £6.7 million for wrongful dismissal.

College Exhibition: IED Fiat/Chrysler project

Second year students at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) in Turin, Italy, recently completed a Fiat/Chrysler sponsored project, which began in February 2009. Conceived as a didactic exercise to think about the recent alliance between Fiat and Chrysler, 37 students were asked to design a vehicle capable of combining the technical know-how, platforms and values of both brands in order to generate interesting and competitive new products for the European and the American markets. In creating their concepts, students were asked to take into account the style, economic accessibility and the low environmental impact of Fiat vehicles as well as the new platforms and major industrial and production capacity afforded by the Italian automaker's alliance with the Chrysler brand.