Futurama with Fiat

How times change! ALASTAIR SLOANE looks at a concept in car-building that would have been inconceivable 20 years back.

Go back about 20 years. You are at a party, talking books and movies. Someone suggests that one day millions of people around the world will be finishing sentences with the words "dot com."

You mumble and ask how anyone could possibly use dot com together in English or any other language, what in the world does it mean anyway, and leave to talk rugby and beer brands.

Nowadays dot com is so common in conversation that it seems it has been around for years. However, computer spellchecks ignore it. They recognise dot but not com.

This might have suited George Orwell as a code for "big brother." John Le Carre might have found a place for both dot and com in a stamp collector's shop in East Germany.

Ernest Hemingway might have worked it into a six-word sentence and then gone fishing. Same with Mark Twain as an exclamation. "Dot com it!" said Tom Sawyer.

Ian Fleming? "Miss Moneypenny, tell double-oh-seven to check out secret agent at large dot com." Mario Puzo? "Hey, it's nothing personal. It's just business dot com." Micky Spillane? "You no-good bum - you're going to the big house dot com."

Dot com is used everyday in the car industry. All the carmakers have Websites, some even for each division - engines, assembly, design and so on. Ask for information on a product and the voice on the other end of the phone says, for example, "go to engine dot com."

Fiat was one of the first carmakers to go on-line, showing off current models and concepts. But its latest concept may appear as implausible as the predicted use of dot com would have been.

Had someone told Henry Ford that early in the 21st century black would be old hat and cars would be multi-coloured, he probably would have said "Baloney," which was what he often said when he couldn't understand an idea.

But that is what Fiat is planning - a customised car. It is called the Ecobasic, and it is not just a study of a compact model of tomorrow but a new way to build a car. Just like dot com is a new way to communicate.

The body panels in the Ecobasic are made from plastic, with the colour moulded all through and not sprayed on. The panels are fixed to a spaceframe chassis in such a way that they can be easily removed.

The Ecobasic arrives at a dealership with only the basic equipment and mechanical parts fixed - no body panels, dashboard, sound system and so on.

Customers can select one colour or mix and match to make it different. They can even choose how many doors they want (three, four or five - blank panels would otherwise fill the holes), decide on seating configuration, equipment and entertainment options.

If you get bored with blue after six months, you can get your dealer to liven it up with, say, red and white bumpers. While he's at it you might like to make the doors green, boot purple and the bonnet grey. What about the mudguards? A darker blue with a pink fleck might do nicely. A new sound system would be good, too, and so would a sunroof.

What's more, there is no bonnet to open to inspect the engine. Fiat believes that the engine is so reliable there is no need for a bonnet, just a small panel for topping up oil and other fluids. Sevice technicians would have access to the engine through removable panels, primarily for maintenance work.

Fiat says the Ecobasic and its 1.2-litre common rail diesel engine is good for 100 mpg, or 3 litres for every 100 kilometres. The engine is mated to a clutchless Selespeed transmission. The car weighs just 750kg and has an aerodynamic factor of 0.28.

Technology to produce the Ecobasic exists today, including the spaceframe chassis, which is used on the Fiat Multipla multi-purpose vehicle. However, a totally new approach to manufacturing would have to be adopted for switching to interchangeable plastic body construction.

But Fiat says the cost of the Ecobasic would be the same as a conventional small car. It is already making plans to include in upcoming production cars some of the newer technologies used in the Ecobasic.