MAMA MIA —
Driven: The 2017 Fiat 124 Spider
Can it emerge from its Mazda MX-5 Miata shadow?
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The original 124 was Fiat's best-selling car in America by far, selling 170,000 units in the 16 years it lived on these shores through the mid-1980s. Fiat wants to rekindle that love in the new millennium, and the route it chose was to partner with an expert. The result? The new Fiat 124, built on the same bones—and at the same Hiroshima factory—as the fourth-generation Mazda Miata.
Who could blame them? Mazda's success was not to ignore things like quality, management, or dealer networks, the things that contributed to the demise of the original 124 and other sports cars of its ilk. In 1989 Mazda struck gold with a reliable little roadster. The Miata became the best-selling two-seat roadster in history and also the most widely road-raced car in the world.
Since the 124 shares much with the Miata, it should feel and behave like one. Base prices are within spitting distance of each other: $25,890 for the 124 and $25,750 for the Miata Sport, with our Classica test model reaching $27,880 with Bluetooth, rear camera, and pearlescent paint as options. (All prices include destination charges.) Despite Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' efforts to position the 124 away from the Miata to avoid those comparisons (and any possible automotive fratricide), it cannot be ignored.
When we first met the 124 at the Los Angeles Auto Show last November, it showed definite design elements bridging the years since the last 124 Spider left us in the 1980s. Now that we've lived with it, we're not convinced. From the front, it ends up being fussy and overwrought; grille openings, headlight shapes, and air intakes fight rather than support one another. Likewise, the new 124's fenders echo the original, but its trunk lid balloons in the middle, negating the sense of lightness those fender peaks were meant to evoke.
More https://arstechnica.com/cars/2…the-2017-fiat-124-spider/