FIAT 500 by Gucci

Fiat 500 by Gucci Revives Long, if Inglorious Tradition

 

A European version of the 2012 Fiat 500 by Gucci. A version for the American market will have its debut during New York Fashion Week.

For all the brand’s recent strides upmarket, Hyundai does not offer color-matched Salvatore Ferragamo luggage. Maserati, however, does. Chevrolet has yet to affix headliners embossed with the Versace logo on the roof of a Malibu — perhaps because Lamborghini beat them to it.
With brand stewardship being a multibillion-dollar cottage industry, few car buyers would expect volume-oriented automakers to persuade chic nameplates into a working relationship. But as the Fiat 500 by Gucci reminded us this week, there once was a time when Italian fashion houses and humble, workaday transportation went together like prosecco and frozen O.J.
The Fiat 500 by Gucci is scheduled to be unveiled on Sept. 8 during New York Fashion Week, marking the fourth occasion that the Italian brand has worked in some capacity with a car company. Laura Soave, the head of Fiat in North America, said that the special edition “amplified the Italian style” of the supermini. Given Fiat’s need to increase awareness of its product at every level of the marketplace, the pairing seems sensible. Gucci, meanwhile, can rest assured knowing it has associated its name with a new totem of urban chic, however accessibly priced it may be.
But as the fossil record shows, Gucci was not always so calculating.

The 1972 AMC Hornet Sportabout wagon bore the fashion house’s signature green-red-green center stripe down its vinyl seatbacks. Aldo Gucci, the house’s president, pushed into the American market with such pairings to raise brand awareness. Now, 40 years later, Fiat is leveraging Gucci’s name to do the same. (Fashion does have a sense of irony.)
A Cadillac dealer in Miami collaborated with Mr. Gucci later in the decade, replacing the traditional crest hood ornament on the 1979 Seville with the Gucci double-G motif. The special-edition cars were ordered directly from the factory and shipped to Miami, where they were painted either black, white or deep brown, and fitted with landau-style tops in Gucci’s traditional plaid print. Inside, the signature touches continued on the head and armrests, and a fanciful Gucci nameplate was affixed to the dashboard above the glovebox.
In 1989, Lincoln branched out from its stable of Bill Blass, Valentino, Pucci, Versace and Givenchy special editions with a plan to offer a Gucci Series Town Car. The vehicle, however, was never produced.
The 500 by Gucci is already sold in Europe, where the redesigned 500 has been colonizing urban cores since 2008. Fiat did not say if it would shuttle Fashion Week attendees around Manhattan in the special-edition supermini for free, like Volkswagen did last year with its redesigned 2011 Jetta. Surely, squeezing into a piece of Italian couture would not be such a novelty for many passengers.