Junkyard Find: 2012 Fiat 500 Gucci Edition
The junkyard tells me that the Fiat 500 depreciates nearly as quickly as the New Mini and Mitsubishi Mirage, though the current generation of 500 remains sufficiently recent that most examples I see are crash victims.
This car, though crashed, is still special: a genuine, numbers-matching Gucci Edition Fiat 500, found in a Denver car graveyard.
I’m always on the lookout for designer-edition cars in the junkyard, be they Mark Cross New Yorkers, Bill Blass Continentals, Cartier Town Cars, Oleg Cassini Matadors, Orvis Grand Cherokees, or even Etienne Agnier Golfs. Naturally, the first junkyard employee who saw the GUCCI badges pried them off this car.
The Gucci 500 got special badging, body stripes, seat fabric, and wheels.
The stripes are still on this car, but junkyard shoppers grabbed the seats immediately. I suspect that the Gucci wheels never even reached the junkyard.
Why is it in this place? Here’s why.
The key is in the ignition and there’s a claim check from what I presume was the repair shop that got the car after the crash. A quick call to the insurance company no doubt resulted in an instant verdict: Morta!
I reviewed the (non-Gucci) 500 Sport, back in 2011, and I thought it was reasonably fun for the price. A few years later, I drove the 500e and enjoyed the electric-motor torque and easy San Francisco parking, not to mention the hilariously festive white-and-orange interior. Usually, there’s more of a delay between a new-car review and a Junkyard Find, of course.
New vehicles in Colorado are emissions-test-exempt for the first eight years after the sale, so this car never had to endure a Denver County smog check (which is a walk in the park next to the stringent tests my cars had to endure when I lived in California).
The automatic would have added enough to this car’s value to make it worth fixing after a little fender-bender, but this one hit something hard at a greater-than-parking-lot-speed clip.
Just the car to drive when you’re stuck behind some retired Mob enforcer in an Imperial!
You’ll find links to 2000+ additional Junkyard Finds at the Junkyard Home of the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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I understand the later year models (‘15 thru’17) have many of the major kinks worked out. Yet, it is still a FIAT. Better get cozy with your Chraftman’s tool set, but you’ll feel the fun of owning your first car again. Always needing some attention, but rewarding when you fix it your self.
Sick! The owner looked very stylish right up until the moment they plowed into whatever object they plowed into. Looks like a direct frontal, so I will guess the use of an electronic device of some kind was the cause.