Italy
1999 has been a busy year for Fiat. Its Punto supermini has been relaunched in an all-new but instantly recognisable format, which carries over the 1.2 8-valve and 16-valve engines. New to the range are a 1.9 diesel and the impressively fast 1.8 HGT hot hatchback which is capable of almost 130 mph. Also new to the range is the boldly-styled Multipla compact MPV, which makes use of a currently unique six-seat layout and is underpinned by the Bravo/Bravo hatchback chassis to ensure that it is good to drive. Both models have the ideal ingredients for sales success, but were not enough to prevent the Toyota Yaris from walking away with this year's honours at the European Car of the Year award ceremony.
Read more about this topic: 1999 In Motoring
Famous quotes containing the word italy:
“I think sometimes that it is almost a pity to enjoy Italy as much as I do, because the acuteness of my sensations makes them rather exhausting; but when I see the stupid Italians I have met here, completely insensitive to their surroundings, and ignorant of the treasures of art and history among which they have grown up, I begin to think it is better to be an American, and bring to it all a mind and eye unblunted by custom.”
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937)
“Uncle Matthew’s four years in France and Italy between 1914 and 1918 had given him no great opinion of foreigners. “Frogs,” he would say, “are slightly better than Huns or Wops, but abroad is unutterably bloody and foreigners are fiends.””
—Nancy Mitford (1904–1973)
“the San Marco Library,
Whence turbulent Italy should draw
Delight in Art whose end is peace,
In logic and in natural law
By sucking at the dugs of Greece.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)