A Fiat Siena sedan, seen in Beijing on a heavy snowy day in February 2015. The fine Fiat was partially covered in show but otherwise in a remarkable good condition, painted in a light beige brown color and fitted with the factory original gray wheel covers.
From a time when good cars needn’t to be big! With darkened windows and black door handles, and an indicator on the front fender that is almost to wildly colored compared to the rest of the car.
The Fiat Siena was a sedan manufactured by the Nanjing-Fiat joint venture from 2002 until 2006. It was based on the Fiat Albea, which was made by Fiat in Turkey. The Nanjing-Fiat joint venture also produced the Fiat Palio 5-door hatchback and the Fiat Palio Weekend station wagon.
The snow was so heavy it was hard to get a good shot of the interior. It looked largely original. The seat covers are surely after-market, protecting the original cloth seats. The Chinese name of the Siena was 西耶那, or Xīyénà, a sound-translation of Siena.
The Nanjing-Fiat Siena had the same size as the Albea: 4186/1703/1485, with a 2439 wheelbase. In China, it was available with 1.3 and 1.5 liter engines. The EDX trim level had the 1.3 under the bonnet, good for 60 hp and 102 Nm. The motor was mated to a five-speed manual sending horses to the front wheels. Top speed was 150 km/h, o-100 took 16.9 second, and fuel consumption was 5.5 liter per 100 kilometers.
Price for the Fiat Siena EDX model started at 79.800 yuan, which was a pretty good deal at the time for a car of the size and kind of the Siena. Still, because it was made for just a short time, these sedans are relatively rare on the road in China.
The Nanjing-Fiat cars were pretty popular in period but the joint venture was troubled with infighting over investments and new cars and they never managed to open enough dealers to unlock Fiat’s full potential in China. In 2007 the joint venture was discontinued and much of the tooling went to Zotye. In 2012 Fiat returned to China via the GAC-Fiat joint venture, later GAC-FCA. This business wasn’t very successful for Fiat either, again mainly due to a lack of dealers. These days the joint venture only makes Jeeps.