Following President Trump’s announced policy shift toward tiny cars, Fiat is already jumping in with its contender: the Topolino.
For decades, the European car makers have defined what a “small” car really means. Be it the original Fiat 500, the Peel P50, the classic Mini, the BMW Isetta or even the modern Citroën Ami, these tiny machines have been commonplace across the Atlantic. Not so over in the United States, where the current Fiat 500e is our market’s smallest car…but not for much longer, apparently. In fact, Fiat announced it is preparing an even smaller entry to the market with the Ami-based Topolino, which will make its way stateside soon.
Fiat CEO Olivier François broke the news during Miami Art Week, doing so less than a week after President Donald Trump told Secretary of Transportation to look into allowing Japanese kei cars into the American market. “I’m happy to share that we’ll be bringing the Fiat Topolino to the US,” François said, “with more details to come next year.
Now, technically speaking, the Fiat Topolino isn’t a “car”, as such. Apart from its diminutive size probably leading you in that direction, Europe considers these sorts of vehicles to be quadricycles. As a result, the 99.8-inch electric Topolino only has a limited power output — just 8 horsepower, to be precise — and 28 mph top speed. It can also only drive up to a claimed 47 miles on a charge of its 5.5-kWh battery. So, while you could feasibly take the Fiat 500e on a longer trip, you most certainly won’t be doing that here.
Even though the Fiat Topolino is essentially a rebadged Citroën Ami, its name does draw back to the original Fiat 500, which the Italian automaker built between 1936 and 1955. Today’s version aims to be another bit of small, cheap transportation for the masses, sporting a price tag of just €9,890 (or about $11,500), be that for the closed-top version or the open-top Dolce Vita model.
Will it make its case to US buyers?
Over in Europe, the Citroën Ami has been on sale since 2020, while the Fiat-branded Topolino joined in on the fun back in 2023. Buyers over there have enjoyed access to this vehicle for a couple years, then, but the American market is an entirely different animal.
François, in his remarks on the Topolino’s appearance at US shows over the past couple years, noted it generated “tremendous excitement” in the lead up to confirming its arrival sometime in the near future. That said, we heard a similar sentiment about the 500e (another small city car, mind you), and such excitement hasn’t translated into explosive sales. Fiat has been gaining steam in 2025 after years of bleeding customers, but the brand’s total 2025 sales through the end of September amount to 1,237 units. And not even all of those were 500es.
Compare that to, say, the Jeep brand, which sold nearly 450,000 vehicles in the same time frame, and Fiat’s current market position in the US becomes starkly clear. Will a Topolino thrown into the lineup improve sales volumes? Well, that relatively low price could be appealing to someone just wanting a low-speed city runabout, but we’ll have to wait and see.
In the meantime, lo and behold, you can sign up for updates on the Topolino’s arrival if you want to see what’s happening over the coming months.
