Fiat Auto will be launching the new Stilo five months earlier than planned after commencing production of the car at the Cassino plant in November instead of April 2007, confirmed Fiat Auto executive vice president and chief technical officer Harald Wester to Automotive News Europe (ANE).
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The launch date has been brought forward because the development of the Stilo was an entirely computerised process and no prototypes were built. This reduced the development time from 23 to 18 months.
The Stilo is Fiat’s first completely virtually engineered model. “With virtual engineering, you do all the validation work on computers. You begin building the first physical vehicles on the production line, using the final tooling for every single part,” Wester said to ANE. In the ordinary development process automakers generally need 60 to 100 prototypes.
Fiat won’t be relying on virtual engineering when it develops the new Fiat 500, though. Based on the Panda, the Fiat 500 will be shorter, so Fiat doesn’t want to dispense with prototypes.
Wester’s estimate of time to market for the 500 is 20 to 21 months compared with 23 for the Grande Punto, which needed prototypes because it is being based on a brand-new platform.
