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Fiat 500 Crashes Through Glass Display at Sao Paulo Auto Show

This just in from the Salão do Automóvel 2014, or as everybody else knows it, the Sao Paulo International Auto Show. We've seen plenty of interesting new concepts and production vehicles from them in the past couple of days, but it seems Fiat's stand received some attention of the unwanted kind.
Fiat 500 Crashes Through Glass Display at Sao Paulo Auto Show 4 photos
Photo: Autoblog Argentina
The Italian company assembled a very interesting and ambitious display stand for the event, perhaps a little too ambitions. A white 500C with a red folding roof suddenly fell from its tall display, causing some pretty serious damage. The incident was not captured on video, but a few photos of the aftermath do exist.

As you can see, the small convertible had been placed high up on a "platter" made from aluminum tubes and glass. There was also a mechanism that allowed the 500C to rotate to give people a better view and looked a bit like naval compasses with gyroscopic stabilization. But something seems to have gone wrong – maybe vibration from the rotating mechanism broke the glass.

Fortunately, the display was separated from Brazilian reporters, so nobody was around. According to Autoblog Argentina, Fiat is currently investigating the incident to find out exactly how its little Cinquecento got damaged.

It's worth a quick note that the Fiat 500C is not exactly the heaviest car in the world. Without luggage and passengers, a base model tips the scales at 0.9 tons or 1,990 lbs. Just imagine what would have happened if a Jeep Grand Cherokoee was on that platform.

The 500C has been on sale in South America for at least two years, and can't be considered a high-volume model.
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About the author: Mihnea Radu
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Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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