Fiat Cinquecento Cita
The Fiat Cinquecento Cita was a one-off concept born from Fiat’s ambitious plan to mark the launch of the new Cinquecento city car.
In December 1991, Fiat invited some of Italy’s most respected coachbuilders to create unique interpretations of the upcoming model, with the results to be unveiled at the 1992 Turin Auto Show.
The finished cars were displayed on Fiat’s stand on April 22, turning the project into a celebration of both the versatility of the Cinquecento platform and the depth of Italian design culture.
To make this possible, Fiat supplied nine standard Cinquecento cars and allocated a budget of 100 million lire to nine leading coachbuilders, among them Idea, Bertone, Pininfarina, Italdesign, Zagato, Coggiola, and the Stola–Itca–Maggiora consortium.
Each participant was tasked with reimagining the modest city car in a distinctive and original way, highlighting how far the basic concept could be pushed.
One of these creations was the Cinquecento Cita, developed by the Stola–Itca–Maggiora group and styled by Aldo Garnero. Its name, “Cita,” meaning “little one” in the Piedmontese dialect, referenced the Moretti Cita, a small but memorable car from Italy’s past.
Garnero, already known for his work on the Panda Destriero, brought his trademark creativity and precision to the project, transforming the Cinquecento into something both familiar and strikingly different.
Presented in Turin, the Cita stood out for its balance of practicality and character, offering a fresh and imaginative take on Fiat’s new city car.
Though it never progressed beyond the concept stage, the Cinquecento Cita remains a vivid example of early-1990s Italian coachbuilding, and a reminder of how collaboration between manufacturers and designers can turn a simple production car into a piece of rolling design history.
