I think you need to move Town peanuthead, or you drive a dog

sat in Mcdonalds, minding my own business i had been working all day so just wanted something quick and cheep to eat to keep hunger pain at bay

2 "girls" sat down and started chatting, what did i do, were do i work ect, self employed, and a architect consultant for a software solution..

any how, they asked if i was minted. i said no, im just ok, so your minted then? no, im just ok...what car have you got, i have a fiat

punch line, so your not minted then are you?

i resisted the earge to slam her head in to her burger and walked away

some people are so shallow its unbelievable, people who think a badge can make something better, having a logo on a t-shirt makes it any better than the same t-shirt with out

there true products of a consumer society. there told something is better because it has a logo or badge, they bow to peer and consumer pressure and follow like sheep

these are the people i have nothing but contempt for, and pass off a smile as i walk past in my 10 quid tesco shoes

Samsite what do girls know any way :

Duck's and hides!

Its a sad state of the world really and i think people that are dressed head to toe in designer clothes, have the latest phone and drive the latest 'in' car: bmw audi etc are about as cool as a vindaloo curry

your going to have to run faster than that SR, the misses is just plunging your address in to satnav

i don't have a dog car thanks very much but i live in a very well off area and all you see is flash cars and unless you don't have a stunning super car its not worth writing home about around here.
i try to show people how nice the coop is and how well it goes but no one listens.
even the girl friend said to me why have you just spent 3k on your car doing it up its still only a fiat its not like its a bmw!
i was not amussed but she openly admits she likes the coop

It doesnt matter if people 'listen', as long as you like the car, sod em Otherwise, go buy a dull bmw and join the crowd oh, and make it a 1/3 series with essential private plate, at least you'll have their much needed 'respect' then.

i don't need the respect hence owning the coop but all i can say is the coop in the genral public eyes has a limited wow factor. we think they are great hence why we own them but lets face it they are quite rare and fast yet they still sell for pennys as not many people want them hence why not mny people think they are cool.

I get the odd 'it's still a fiat though' comment but just about everyone I know thinks its a nice car. Many are put off by perception...iE that they break down alot and require constant attention but (touch wood) in my experience it's been very reliable.

There's even been one or two in work who have decided to ditch their new cars (the £200/month purchases) in order to get a bit of cash together to buy something secondhand.

Maybe not a coop but on the strength of seeing the coop, knowing its 10 yrs old, knowing they dont have a good image when its comes to reliability and knowing now if they bide their time and buy with their heads rather than their hearts, they can have something that looks good, is as reliable as a new car and will cost them a fraction of the £2500 a year they fork out to drive a new C2 or Fiesta.

I argee with the public eyes comment. Normally it's older people who come and ask me what is it then as soon as I say FIAT they look at me like i've just killed someone and they explain it's a very nice car and they don't see many.

Normally the younger crowd just think it's a £800 FIAT that is ready to fall apart and typical comments about how ugly the car looks.

I've said it many times here I get stick for owning one because my friends are jap mad and rightly so with the insane mods they do. As soon as something is up it's the typical "should of stopped mucking around and got a proper Ferrari" then I get the other end of the scale who think's the car is "a Ford or something".

I find it very sad anyone even considers the fact they need to buy a lets say a BMW M3 because it will make them feel better and with others around them or the fact they want to try and impress someone. I also feel it's sad that people have to ask "Whats the public perception of the Coupe".

Just buy what you want and drive it.

I think people would like one but the expense of running one is too high.

the thing is that the coop is still a nice looking car and it goes well. its a shame when people ruin it for you by the rude coments, i don't care to much but when you take pride in you car like most people here would and someone is point blank rude about the car you own then it hurts. i have had this a couple of times with this.
really though its not enough to put me off the car.

Let's just be grateful that it's not a prestige brand/badge. If it was, most of us wouldn't be able to afford to buy one.

Very true, for the looks/performance/standard kit the coupe is an absolute bargain, if it was another make it would be quite a bit more

i agree to a extent but most high power cars have taken a hit now, scooby /evo's /skyline/m3's/ near all powerful cars have taken a hit but if the coop is a good car for the money well good car full stop but with the issues on common things going its not so atractive to buy than some of the jap cars or german cars but i like to be different hence the coop.

hmm... thought the thread was perception of the coupe, not of its make ..

I've bought a Coupe for 'me', as I like its looks and to a degree its straight line oomp. I do sometimes wish it was better screwed together like my previous Bmw 5 series ( which I'd bought as a comfortable, well engineered and safe cruiser, not for the badge. ) , but then I've wished that about all 4 cars I've owned since that

I have no interest in anyones shallow opinions of the car, nor its badge ( never have, never will ), I'm just glad to be in the position to own something a little different.

Was chatting to a female colleague today, She mentioned that when I started at the company, she thought my coop was a ferrari, and wondered why a man of my Calibre was working as a temp in a payroll office!

You can't really get a better perception than that!

very true. its not just the coop though but a man is very much judged on his pride and joy now a days and lets face it does it matter one bit.

You can't put a price on taste or class.......

Is it just me though that thinks Fiat has suddenly become cool? The new 500 couldn't be more successful if it tried. I really never had brand snobbery when I first set eyes and ears on my friends 20vt all those years ago, I just didn't know the car was as good as it was.

People's ignorance is definitely our gain.

I've never met a girl who hasn't fallen in love with the coop, especially the odd screech of excitement I could get out of one of them when booting it in 1st surprisingly off a junction

In short, I haven't met anyone with a negative to say about it. And to me people's perspective on it really does matter, its a huge factor as to why i enjoy owning it and spending so much keeping it going!

my first experience of a fiat coupe was when i worked at epson, one of the TL's at that time had a black fiat coupe 20vt with the full kit. I was driving a 3ltr toyota supra at the time. we used to take the same route to work each day. and the inevitable occurd each day
i got shown the ass end of a coupe! the supra sounded nice, but the sound of the coupe going past at full chat a couple of foot away was amazing
gareth Jones his name was, he must have been on here some years ago now... any how. he took me home in it one night and i was amazed by its looks and speed, i had to have one

i didn't give a monkeys if it was a fiat, the badge meant nothing to me. if anything can be said of fiat, me and the misses both say they produce fun quirky cars

fiat panda 4*4 great car! 4wd in something like that was differnt
fiat punto gt, a great pocket rocket
fiat punto HGT imop one of the best looking super minis out there
fiat bravo hgt a lovely looking hot hatch that went as well as it looked
Fiat Coupe.....need i say more
Fiat multapla, say what you will, but they dared to be different on this one!
Fiat Stelo abarath, great looking with all the toys you could ask for
Fiat panda, the new one, great car i think, i would own one

I can go on....I dont fiat have made a bad car. I dont know why people dont like them, i wouldn't want to own another car full stop

The only good thing about the Multipla is the fact that it's alarm system seems to be set off whenever I drive past with my farty exhaust
Always gives me a chuckle as I drive through one of the neighboroughing villages and see this dog ugly car, and hear the horn start beeping as the alarm goes off, and see the lights start flashing in my rear view

I had always wanted my first car to be black or silver. I ended up buying Portofino Blue (the first one I saw)- only the Fiat Coupe could do that!

i wanted yellow, or red, and i said defiantly no to black....i ended up with a black one

colour is only metal deep. its the Coupe underneath that matters

i remember seeing the coupe on the internet and persuading my dad to take me down to see it- it was about an hour's drive.

he had to go to an important wedding that day too and having to travel so many miles to see an 11 year old car didn't appeal to him at all. he was pi*ssed off and we were arguing all the way. i was in a bad mood consequently and i was at a stage where i had lost all excitement and interest in the car and i was expecting to get there and be greeted by a banger, just to top things off.

but... as soon as we got there, we forgot everything! there stood the coupe, looking great. it instantly won us over and put the smile back on my face. and when i was shown the amazing ability of the car- i was reduced to laughing hysterically.

funnily enough there was another car there, which was also on my shortlist. what was it now?
i think it was a... toy...toyota... toyota celica, thats it.

do get me wrong i like the design of 90%of fiats out there they look great and yes they are fun but its the reliablty that puts people off and that has happered the name.
look at the rover and mg and tvr.
i have had loads of rover coupes and turbos and they are a great car but are not cool at all due to there reliabitly problems.
mg made some different and nice looking cars and handdle well to and hit every part of the market but again there rep killed them
tvr made one of the best cars on the planet in my eyes and they look amazing go like a super car and sound out of this world but trv's get a bad name and i have heard loads of people saying they aren't cool ????????

you need a german car now that aparently is reliable lol to be cool even though most are made like crap now.

Thankfully I have grown out of giving a toss about whether some 'no mark' thinks my car is cool or not
But I did used to care once .....so no offense meant to those who still do



ps I get a lot more comments on my coop than I did with my last car...



pps It was an ITR

It doesn't bother me that a lot of car nuts dis the coop becasue it's a Fiat and make out that it's unreliable etc.
Most true petrol heads know the car and give it credit.

And ALL joe public non car people think it's luvverly - and rightly so

Nissan isn't a 'cool' brand, it makes the vast majority of its money from reliable shopping trolleys; you have to remember most people aren't car lovers, and don't have the foggiest what that an Evo or Skyline is.

BMW, for the most part, isn't 'cool'. It makes incredibly well made, expensive cars, again deriving most of its money from debadged 3-series repmobiles.

Brands like BMW impress some idiots more than others, because owning a high-end model is a statement of wealth - people hope owning the cheaper ones will achieve the same. It shows just how unbelievably stupid those impressed are, as most new BMWs are either leased, or bought on HP - i.e, somebody elses money.

Enough of the brand crap - this was supposed to be about perception of the Coupe, not Fiat. Either way, I haven't had any negative comments, and couldn't care less if I did.

Philip

the only thing that winds me up is work colleagues who say that in the 4 yrs i've had mine it's let me down and cost me loads of money. when pressed about what and when it let me down they can't come up with anything, it's a perception. i have spent a lot on it, out of choice, to get it to a reasonable and highly reliable condition, and testimony to this is, the only times it's let me down are a) a pipe blew off when i was taking it home from purchase, as the lad had tied it on with a bootlace and b) when the clutch master reservoir decided to pack in.
not bad for a 11 year old car on c114k miles, 40k+ of those by me...but they still won't have it that it's reliable.....