IrishLaunch: Fiat BravoFiat ignored the traditional rules of car design and development when it created its new Bravo in the virtual world, discovers Daniel Attwood
The Stilo, Fiat's current offering in the highly competitive compact family car segment, has failed miserably. It has performed worse than the competition on more than just our roads and, since its launch in 2001, has barely limped off Europe's forecourts.
As a result, Fiat has rushed to replace it as quickly as possible, and this replacement - the Bravo - must be good, if it is to sustain the revival of Fiat Auto kick-started by its youthful chief executive, Luca de Meo.
But rushing to bring such an important car to market so quickly has put serious pressure on the company's engineers. Rising to the challenge, Fiat employed the design skills of Frank Stephenson, the man who designed BMW's retro Mini.
It also set about creating the new car in the virtual world. By developing the car on screen, the company has not only saved money, it also cut the time from drawing board (well, computer screen) to production to just 18 months - a record among carmakers.
In fact it took just 17 months, but 17 is an unlucky number in Latin cultures, so 18 it is.
For a company that doesn't have the reputation for quality that its German or Japanese counterparts enjoy, rushing the development of such a vital car at record speed raises questions. Can it assure buyers that it has tested the car fully? Virtual testing has allowed it to save time and money, but will there be a hidden cost?
Fabio Mingrino, the man responsible for the Bravo, is convinced the company is on the right road and that its virtual engineering and design approach is one all car manufacturers will soon adopt. Indeed, there is already widespread use of computer-aided design among carmakers, but none have used it to the extent Fiat has with its new Bravo.
"Fiat needed a car very, very fast in the C segment," admits the Italian engineer. "And we found a way. We spent just 18 months from the concept of the vehicle to the launch. In the past we spent, depending on the complexity of the vehicle, between 24 and 36 months.
"The Stilo, for example, took more than 36 months."
Much of this rush to market was achieved by not building prototypes, which are built to test aspects of a new model before production begins.
Prototypes are hugely expensive - about €500,000 each - and typically there are 200 produced and tested to destruction. By creating on-screen prototypes to test things like a model's ability to withstand a side-impact crash saved Fiat over €50 million alone.
Bravo prototypes were made, but not until the last stage before production began and were essentially early production cars. The results of these real life tests matched those carried out by Fiat's engineers on screen. And this, says Mingrino, should reassure buyers that the groundbreaking way the Bravo has been developed has many advantages and no disadvantages in terms of safety or reliability.
This, he says, is reinforced by the car's five star EuroNCAP crash rating and its one million kilometre, three-year warranty.
The Italian manufacturer is already using this virtual approach for its next generation of cars. The Lancia Delta for example, which is expected to be sold in Ireland in 2009, will take even less time than the Bravo to go from initial design to full production.
Speed is the key here. The financial advantages of getting a new model into the showrooms quickly are massive says Mingrino. "You earn a lot of money if you arrive to market early - every one month earlier to market could equate to €30 million, although it depends on the car," he says.
BUT CARMAKERS DO NOT create expensive prototypes for nothing - they provide the physical form that designers and engineers need to test their ideas and they highlight problems that may be missed on screen.
For example, the Bravo's instrument cluster has proved too difficult to read in real life conditions and must now be redesigned despite the car already being on sale across Europe.
It is also interesting to note that while the Bravo, which is only available with five doors and will be joined by an estate version in a couple of years, is heralded as the all-new replacement for the Stilo, it actually uses many Stilo parts. "The speed we have developed the Bravo was possible not just because of virtual reality, but also because we already knew which carry over parts we would upgrade from the Stilo," reveals Mingrino.
Just how much of the Stilo has been carried over will come as a surprise to many - most of the out-of-sight parts, including the entire chassis and steering mechanism, are re-used after being adjusted and improved to address some of the Stilo's handling and ride quality issues.
Using these parts means Fiat also saved more time and money. Mingrino is at pains to stress that motorists will not notice that the Bravo uses so many borrowed parts. "If you test the two cars side by side, you know you have a completely different car," he says.
Indeed, Fiat would rather any association with the Stilo is avoided. Which is perhaps, why there's a new engine in the Bravo that the Stilo never got. This impressive new 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol engine - called T-Jet - can produce up to 150bhp (there's also a 120bhp version) and yet will sit comfortably in the current and the revised VRT system, thanks to its low cc and relatively low CO2 emissions, which do not exceed 170g per km.
Eyes from every quarter will be watching intently how the Bravo, which starts here at €19,495, performs, not just because it is vital for Fiat's survival, but also because its success will mark a new age of a virtual car development.