Fiat Marea

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Fiat Marea

Manufacturer	Fiat Auto
Production	1996-present
Predecessor	Fiat Tempra
Successor	Fiat Stilo Multiwagon Fiat Linea
Class	Family car
Body style	4-door saloon 5-door estate (Weekend)
Related	Fiat Bravo/Brava
Similar	Volkswagen Bora

The Fiat Marea is a family car available as a saloon and an estate (Fiat Marea Weekend), produced by the Italian automaker Fiat. Launched in 1996, the Marea models were essentially different body styles of Fiat's hatchback offerings, the Bravo and Brava. While the Fiat Stilo Multiwagon is the succesor of the Marea Weekend, the Linea is scheduled to replace the saloon version in 2007.

1 Production and markets
2 Engines
- 2.1 Brazilian engines and models
3 References

The Marea was originally manufactured in Fiat's Cassino and Mirafiori plants in Italy.^[1] Later Marea also superseded the Tempra in Brazilian, Betim and Turkish Bursa (Tofaş),^[2] which make vehicles mostly for local and other developing markets.

In Europe, production and sales of the Marea ceased in 2002, a year after the Bravo and Brava were replaced with Fiat Stilo. The Marea Weekend was replaced by the Stilo Multiwagon, while the sedan was dropped altogether due to relatively low popularity of compact sedan cars in Europe. Nevertheless, the Marea (in both body styles) is still manufactured in Turkey and Brazil for local (and other Latin American) markets. The Brazilian version was facelifted in 2001, when it gained a redesigned rear end with taillights taken from the Lancia Lybra.^[3]^[4] For 2006 the Marea was mildly revised again, gaining a new rear end, and a new grille, similar in style to other current Fiat models.^[5]

The Marea petrol and turbodiesel engines 1.4 L, 1.6 L, 1.8 L and 2.0 L petrol and 1.9 L were sourced from the Brava and Bravo, and a 2.0 20v turbo option from the Fiat Coupé was also available. For a short time there was also a 2.4 turbodiesel available, dropped in 2001, which has become sought after. A Marea BiPower 1.6 L flexible fuel engine was later added to the range; it may run on either petrol, ethanol or any mixture of them.

The Marea was introduced in 1998 into the Brazilian market with only one engine: the 2.0 20v. Due to Brazilian production taxes the 2.0 20v engine had its electronic fuel injection remapped to limit the engine power to 128 bhp in the Marea SX and ELX models of 1999. The engine retained its full power (141 bhp) on the more expensive Marea HLX model. Simply exchanging the SX or ELX fuel injection chip with the HLX chip would bring back the original engine power. Fiat initially claimed it to be untrue explaining that other modifications had been made in the SX/ELX models for cost-savings, but this was revealed to be false.

In 2000 the 2.0 20v engine was replaced with the 2.4 20v (159 bhp) engine in the HLX model, and the SX model started using the 1.8 16v engine (131 bhp), while the ELX injection was maped as the HLX to give the 2.0 20v engine the original engine power (141 bhp).

Later the 2.0 20v engine was dropped and the 1.6 16v (103 bhp) engine was introduced. The Brazilian models and their respective current engines are as follows: