Poor little Punto just couldn’t compete

Motoring writer Gareth Butterfield explains why the zero-star safety rating given to the fallen Fiat Punto is nothing to be alarmed about if you still own one

THIS week we’ve learned that production of the Fiat Punto, part of the world’s motoring landscape since 1993, has ceased. The Italian supermini has changed a bit since it first replaced the Uno in the early 90s and, especially recently, it’s never been a hugely popular choice in the UK but worldwide 2,67 million people have bought the third generation model alone. So it’s been a big success.

However, if you’re one of those 2,67 million people you might have been a bit startled by recent news that Euro NCAP, the people who test and award official safety ratings to every car on sale in Europe, gave the current Punto a zero-star rating. That’s the only one it’s ever had to use.

What’s even more startling is that, when the current Punto was launched in 2005, the same organisation awarded it five stars. So what’s changed in that time?

Well, importantly, it’s not as if they’ve made the car any less safe. They’ve not exactly traded the steel structural bits for balsa wood and they’ve not replaced the airbags with balloons and a hand-pump.

In fact, the car hasn’t really changed at all. But the competition has.

While Fiat bowed out of spending money developing the last Punto, partly due to suffering so badly from the effects of the 2008 recession, other manufacturers making competing cars have been investing heavily in their models.

And, as of December 2017, when Euro NCAP made its damning and eventually fatal decision to award zero stars to the Punto, safety standards across the industry had become so high, there was literally nothing left in the Punto’s once impressive safety arsenal to inspire the testers.

Fiat’s 500, a relatively lucrative car for Fiat, currently has three stars. While Punto competitors such as the Volkswagen Polo and the Toyota Yaris were awarded the full five stars.

As a result, Fiat has decided to do the kindest thing and it’s put the Punto out of its misery.

But if you do happen to own one, don’t be frightened. You’re still safer in a Punto then you would have been in a Uno. And it hasn’t become more dangerous over the years, it’s just the standards have become far more stringent. And that’s actually good news for all of us, of course.

I’ll miss the Punto. As an adolescent I always wanted a convertible one in yellow. And then when they made a hot version of the second generation Punto, I fancied one of those too.

Sure, there were better cars, but the Punto had an Italian flair and a personality that few others could match.

Having said that, the space the Punto took up in Fiat’s factory will now be used to build Maseratis. Every cloud, and all that.