2/15/11 Fiat 500 email.

[Gavin]

Hi Gavin.

The time has finally come! We are preparing for your Prima Edizione FIAT 500 to be delivered. See for yourself as the Prima Edizione vehicles are loaded and ready to embark on their journey.

Starting this week, a FIAT representative will be calling you to confirm your delivery location. We are so excited that you'll be getting your FIAT 500 soon!

Ciao,
Laura Soave
Head of FIAT North America



YEA!!  (sits and stares at phone)

Gavin

[Gavin]

Started a thread about the call in another spot...not sure how to link, so asking here :)


Thought I would start a thread asking is anybody has been called yet by Fiat?

Seems the word is they will be calling this week....as soon as anybody gets a call, well post the info here :)

Thanks

Gavin

[prima 109]

If you sit and stare, it will never ring.LOL

[sjmst]

Gavin, I think you chose wisely; gray looks good from what little I see. White too is nice.
Still not sure how I feel about my color..Russo..

BUT, can't wait to get it!

[sam500]

I love the red with all the black accents! Very italian :) Definitely not Rosso Brillante, which makes it a bit sportier. Can't wait see it in person. They look much better than the digital illustrations!!

[prima 109]

I spoke with Maria @ the Fiat line and she said they will start calling Prima owners in numeric order starting  with #11 on Thursday to confirm delivery options and locations.  She said if anyone has any questions in the meantime to call them @ 1-888-ciao-fiat.

[prima 109]

I'm with you on this one Sam!  I like it, now that I can see a real car not a cgi.  can't wait to see it in person in a few weeks!

[Giallo Edizione]

I have resized the pic from my email and looked really carefully at the bit of the dashboard of the upper center red PE and compared it to the dash in this picture :

http://www.drivebulletin.com/uploaded_images/2008-Fiat-500-Ferrari-Courtesy-Car-731960.jpg 

and I cannot see any red where it ought to be. I can see the red stitching on the steering wheel but nothing on the dash to indicated the dash insert is body color and not graphite.

Anyone else see something?

The PE's look pretty cool now that they are real.

[Mike S]

I too prefer the body color dash. If I don't like the graphite I will order a red one to match my car. I will keep the graphite dash I remove so it stays with the car.

[Gavin]

Yeah, from the tiny tiny tiny bit I see, the gray is quite fetching....but it does get the littlest amount of LOVE..ie images. How many gray 500's has anybody seen vs red, white, brown, yellow, blue....

Gavin

[sketch]

I studied the picture closely and have determined that it doesn't show any of the bits of the dash that would be body color.  It seems like all you can see is the top half of the steering wheel (from the top edge of the center bit) and, to the right, the radio faceplate.  The body-color bit on that part of the car is narrow, only large enough to hold the sport, hazard, and rear window defrost buttons.

I wouldn't worry just yet! :D

[sam500]

I have been playing with the pictures quite a bit and here's what I'm thinking...

I zoomed in as much as possible until the upper center imageis pixelated beyond recognition, and I also do not see any red. However, as far as I can tell all we can see is the upper dash, the part that is dark grey (or black) in all of the cars, and the driver's hand and shoulder. It is possible that the picture is angled in such a way that we don't see the "bezel", but I couldn't find anything that was comparably shot. The image that you are talking about is very much taken to showcase the whole interior, making the red part perfectly visible, so it's not an ideal point of reference.

Now, taking this a bit too far, I then started looking for pixelated traces of red, and this is what I found:



It might just be my hopeful thinking, but maybe those hidden hues of red are from bits of the still secret "dash/bezel". All I know is that I couldn't really see a graphite anything, so this is just contributing to the communal question.

For now, I will try to come to terms with whatever dash we do get, and just enjoy the fact that these cars will make their way to us soon!

[Mike S]

In places that have had the 500 for a while it would be normal to see a body colored dash and the graphite would be a desired option.

The body colored dash is new to us and very cool. I liked that quite a bit and it matches my older 500. Given a few years of 500 ownership I may also want a graphite dash. Right now I want it to match.

[prima 109]

Good ole Laura.  She knows how to keep us in suspense, dosen't she?

[Giallo Edizione]

sam500 wrote

I have been playing with the pictures quite a bit and here's what I'm thinking...

I zoomed in as much as possible until the upper center imageis pixelated beyond recognition, and I also do not see any red. However, as far as I can tell all I can see is the upper dash, the part that is dark grey (or black) in all of the cars, and the driver's hand and shoulder. It is possible that the picture is angled in such a way that this is all we see, but I couldn't find anything that was comparably angled to compare. The image that you are talking about is very much angled to showcase the whole interior, making the red perfectly visible, so it's not the ideal point of reference.

Now, taking this a bit too far, I then started looking for pixelated traces of red, and this is what I found:

It might just be my hopeful thinking, but maybe those hidden hues of red are from bits of the dash. All I know is that I couldn't really see a clear graphite bezel, so this is just contributing to the communal question. For now, I will try to come to terms with whatever dash we do get, and just enjoy the fact that these cars will make their way to us soon!

Soooooo....they carefully selected that exact angle to keep the bezel a secret as long as possible.  They sure are crafty.

[sam500]

Secret Bezel wrote

Soooooo....they carefully selected that exact angle to keep the bezel a secret as long as possible.  They sure are crafty.

EXACTLY!!!!!

[Giallo Edizione]

sjmst wrote

Gavin, I think you chose wisely; gray looks good from what little I see. White too is nice.
Still not sure how I feel about my color..Russo..

BUT, can't wait to get it!

I think you are right about the grey. And the black stripe on the grey should look the best based on the pics IMHO. I saw a grey 500 in Paris last fall-it was a ragtop and it had chrome accents and looked really sharp-probably their equivalent of a Lounge model. I like my choice of red for me but the black stripe just might have to go. I'll need to buy a spare one from parts to hold on the side to sell the car as a real Primo at a 2x markup to pay for my Abarth :-).  Along with the graphite dash...

[Minuszka]

I don't know, somehow the timing of today's email is odd. I know we're all excited and waiting for more and new information, but the last email was the engine video and that was a different issue from these factory snapshot montages. The last one similar to today's was the sheet metal, just about 10 days or so ago.
There was a post a few days ago where someone stipulated that maybe these aren't actual, just made photos, but who knows when they were taken and it's being fed to us according to a certain release schedule. I wouldn't think that way, but this looks like a sudden jump on the information line. No updates and photos about one of the most important part of a car making, the "marriage" when the engine joins the body, or about the dashboard inserted, or the painting; sheetmetal and then rolling the cars to the trailer.
I have a feel that there would have been more montage updates coming, but some roadblock for the delivery was cleared and we quickly jumped ahead to almost the last piece of the chain.
What do you all think?
I noticed on the photos that there is a round emblem, likely a prima logo  -similar to the on on the seats - on the driver door pillar.

[prima 109]

that's the Prima Edizione Badge they were talking about  Now if we could just get the Bezel mystery solved, we'll be good.

craig

[sonicsby5]

This thread is hilariously nerdy, I love it.  Way to go all CSI on that image!  "Let's get that bezel over to Trace..."