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Okan Altan and Fiat Tipo have just made history. The 48-year-old Turkish auto journalist and editor has just completed an amazing world tour with the ‘unstoppable’ Fiat Tipo, pulling the standard-specification Fiat Tipo through an amazing journey of 41,000 km – the same distance as the earth’s circumference – in 133 days. The epic road trip, took Altan and the special – issue red 4-Door Fiat Tipo, through 22 countries and 122 cities.
The Fiat Tipo World Tour ended with the return home of the car and its intrepid driver, whose 400 hours behind the wheel enabled him to appreciate the Tipo’s reliability and comfort on different surfaces, including some of the world’s most treacherous roads, and in the most adverse climates and weather conditions. The feat was achieved not through any specific preparation of the car, but thanks to the high standards of the Tipo project, which involved a team of over 2,000 engineers and specialists over three years and clocked up nearly nine million kilometres of test driving in the most extreme conditions.
The result is a reliable, high-quality model and the effective realisation of a formula based on personality, simplicity and functionality combined with unbeatable value: these are the characteristics that have sealed the success of the Tipo family.
In short, an exceptional, full-range offer, focused on value for money, the key element in the strategy of the Fiat functional family, as summed up by the slogan “You don’t need much to get a lot”.
The Fiat Tipo did not undergo any additional technical preparations for its long round-the-world trip prior to leaving the Tofas plant in Bursa, Turkey.
The first stages of the world tour were in Europe: from Turkey, the red 4-Door Fiat Tipo travelled through Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine before entering Russia. Here, the untiring car and driver followed the road that runs alongside the world’s most famous railway, the Trans-Siberian, travelling 11 hours a day for eight days in total, without any signs of flagging. The journey then continued in Japan, where the car was greeted with rapturous enthusiasm by locals, before reaching Yokohama where it boarded a ship bound for Mexico.
Such a remarkable adventure would not be complete without a mishap, which happened when a bureaucratic error forced Altan to wait 11 days before entering the North American country. The journey then continued with a 40 day boat trip across the 6,000 km expanse of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Mexico from the UK. After disembarking on the coast of England, the Fiat Tipo subsequently crossed 14 different European countries, including The Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy.
The Fiat Tipo hatch and sedan are due for local release in May in South Africa and will be available with a choice of 1.3l, 1.4l and 1.6l engines mated to manual or automatic transmissions. Further details, according to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, will be released closer to the launch date.
