High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Fiat Tipo is a small family car designed by the IDEA design house and produced by the Italian manufacturer Fiat between 1988 and 1995. The Tipo was initially available only as a five-door hatchback. The car was made entirely out of galvanized body panels to avoid rust, and was built on a completely new Fiat platform, that was later used on Fiat, Alfa-Romeo and Lancia models. It also stood out, because of its boxy styling that gave it innovative levels of packaging - rear passenger room being greater than that in a rear wheel drive Ford Sierra, but in a car that was of a similar size to the smaller Ford Escort. The only car with comparable packaging efficiency was the outdated Austin Maestro. For 1989, the Tipo won the European Car of the Year award. The car has been extremely popular in Brazil. It outsold the Volkswagen Gol, which had been the best-selling Brazilian car for over 20 years. Just the Tipo, the Fiat Mille and Fiat Paliohave outsold the Gol.