Is this car Brasilian? --- Post updated --- create a stair to put on it. --- Post updated --- (I'm Brazilian)
Well, it was a local redesign of the italian Uno by FIAT's southern american division. To an extent, it is a brazilian car.
It kinda is. Other than some sheet metal, the brazilian Uno has very little in common with its european counterpart. They were even built on two different platforms.
But the Uno was marketed everywhere in southamerica. Its not exclusively brazilian. The author is argentinean, for example (i think)
"Brazilian" as designed, engineered and manufactured by FIAT's brazilian division for LATAM. European Uno was sold everwhere in Europe but it's still an "italian" car. Vehicles sold in Argentina were manufactured by Sevel Argentina under licence. After 2000, Betim, Brazil became the only assembly plant for Type 146 models sold in Southern America.
yes, in argentina we have those versions too (the premio is not that common tho) also the elva is called "duna weekend"
The brazilian Premio is the argentinian Fiat Duna. During his early years, the Premio was a two doors sedan (pretty much like the Fiat Oggi was a two door sedan of the 147) and, by the time it was planned to be made by SEVEL Argentina, the Brazilian Premio added two more doors, resulting in the well known argentinian Fiat Duna. Two door sedans were very common in Brazil those days, but the practicality was below the average. Nowadays Dunas here in Argentina are rare (at least in Buenos Aires) and if you find one, I'm pretty sure it's all beat up... with a stair on top of it.. or a Remís (poor's Uber).
I see dunas everywhere outside buenos aires. My uncle has a beige duna with no rust at all original paint and 87.000km on the clock. if you go to mercadolibre (it's like latin american e-bay) you will find a lot of decent dunas for a good price
The Duna has quite a (negative) cult following in Italy. It was available from 1987 to 1991 and soon became the target of satire, due to its uninspired styling and sub-par build quality. It's considered by many one of the worst car ever built together with the dreary Alfa Romeo Arna. Neither car was that bad, though. Kinda shows how preconceptions can ruin the reputation of products for generations to come...
Dunno if the Eur model is very different to the SA model, but here the duna is no iron and stone machine. Its popular because it was good enough and cheap enough. Then again, most cars here are volkswagen or fiats, and even most ford models are european models. We dont know anything about reliability here when the corolla is considered a luxury car.
The "european" Duna was imported straight away from Brazil, together with the Uno CS. Both were cheap and good enough as the competition, but they were soon perceived as 2nd rate alternatives simply because of their origins.