Exclusive: Roberto Giolito on the 2004 Fiat Trepiuno

First of all, we should point out that Car Design News chose to ask Giolito about the Trepiuno as he’s far too modest to single it out himself, above the many other models in the collection. But as the concept led directly to the re-born 500 of 2007 (whose design Giolito also led) and is still Fiat’s top-seller and in production largely unchanged 12 years later, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

Developed while Giolito was director of Fiat’s advanced design department, the Trepiuno concept was not an under-the-radar project but was unusual in how it was created. “This model was realised over a shortened Punto chassis. It took 1.5 years of hard work as this was not the usual prototype made of fibre glass or hard resin,” Giolito explains. “It was a steel body and all the panels were shaped over castings. We were not sure if this car would go into production, but we wanted to create a real car to test.”

It was also unusual in the team who created it as Giolito continues: “It was an open-source process, I was leading a team of 15 but most were student interns. After three months we selected six to move from Arese to Turin. I had the privilege to shape my team, including Andreas Wuppinger [exterior], Vigilio Fernandez [interior] and Rosella GuascoandGiulia Moselli [colour and materials]. They were hired in-between this experience and when Frank Stephenson became head of design [February 2005] he let the advanced design team work on the 2007 production launch.”

One of the joys of the Trepiuno concept’s journey into the 500 production car, is how little appeared to have changed. It actually got much longer from 3.3m to 3.5m-plus but you hardly notice. “The magic was to reshape the volume and, to me, have an even better proportion,” Giolito says with passion. “The H-point of a 500 is higher than in a 500X SUV. You don’t feel it due to the different belt line. The engineers were pushing to lower the belt line, to reduce this area [the height between the beltline and feature groove]. This was an innovation of the original 500, and we wanted to simulate its ‘Bibendum’ shape. This ‘step’ – in Italian, ‘scalino’ – creates a shade which from 200 metres you read as a line. It’s modulated around the car, thinner and thicker.”

The Trepiuno’s interior was advanced for its time too, although less translated into production. Trepiuno means ‘three-plus-one’ in Italian and the front seats were staggered – rather than side-by-side – with a collapsible passenger-side dashboard to make room for another seat behind the front one. The final transition to a body-coloured production IP filet came about in an unusual manner too, as Giolito recounts: “After the concept a customisation website we started became an immediate success. The general public offered sketches and Vigilio [Fernandez] made an interesting video game where we cut the cluster of the original 500 to enable participants to compose their identikits [for customisation]. This convex shape captured the imagination of the people and convinced us to switch the dashboard to this more classical style.”

The Trepiuno’s under-surface controls developed by Johnson Controls were also ahead of their time. “I was convinced you needed sensitive haptic controls. I don’t like the flat screen approach,” says Giolito. “They light up when you touch them and when the temperature is adjusted to ‘cold’, they go from red to blue. This element still works.”

…As does the concept, a true game-changer for Fiat’s fortunes in the 21st Century.

[Next time: Fiat Heritage Hub pt3 - The 1951 Fiat 600]