I have to admit that I don’t really get the “guy cars vs. chick cars” thing. Oh, I have a general idea of the characteristics of each but when it comes to specific cars I’m often wrong (Well… according to guys, at least) but ever since I first saw this Fiat commercial (which I love, btw) during the last Superbowl I’ve been thinking that the Fiat 500 Abarth is a chick car and that the reason for the commercial is to convince guys that it’s not.
That’s not a bad advertising strategy. The Abarth is cute and cute usually equals “chick car.” Unless they can convince the guys that it’s sexy. Women don’t care. You rarely hear a woman say, “Ewwww, I can’t drive that. It’s a guy car.”
So what about it, everyone? Am I wrong (again) or is Fiat trying to sell a chick car to guys?
May 9th, 2012 - 11:47 am
Perhaps they are trying to market the goofy little car as “sexy” so WOMEN will buy them. Much in the same way that most guys don’t care about makeup, clothes, etc etc etc but women use makeup/clothes to compare/compete with other women.
Most of the Fiat 500 drivers I’ve seen are older men or women… same demographic as you’d find in a Smart car or Mini, or any other overpriced little car.
Although the Smart isn’t overpriced as such.
May 9th, 2012 - 2:44 pm
So it’s an old person’s car? That would make even more sense. It’s all about youth.
May 9th, 2012 - 6:15 pm
The Abarth’s appeal to guys is based on having 60 percent more horsepower: 160 ponies can rather smartly move around a 2500-lb car.
And selling cars to the kids is pretty much a losing battle: the average buyer of Scion, Toyota’s ostensibly youth-oriented division, is somewhere around 42 years old. (The original xB, a refrigerator carton on wheels, was highly prized by old folks for its easy access, prodigious volume, and abstemious thirst. Toyota promptly screwed it up by bolting in an engine twice as big and adding 600 lb to the car’s avoirdupois, immediately crossing it off my list.)
May 10th, 2012 - 12:16 am
160 horsepower? Bah. I could show you a 150 horsepower truck that would drag that car down the road. Sideways.
But of course, it’s not a *fast* truck. I just like engines that are opposite of what’s been advertised in automobiles recently – instead of high horsepower and low torque, I like to see high torque but low horsepower. Makes for an interesting vehicle.
I like the original Scion xB myself, but was very disappointed that a car, shaped like that one is shaped, was not offered with a diesel engine.