At its launch, the 1978 Fiat Ritmo was touted as the most distinctive small car in the entire Europe. The car was styled by Bertone of Italy. The car could not manage to do much business in the U.S. and U.K. due to its unconventional looks. In those days a ladies sanitary towel in U.S. also had a make by the name Ritmo and hence it was introduced as Fiat Strada in the country. The Ritmo had a front wheel drive which was similar to the conventional 128.

The handling and overall driving experience of the car was satisfactory but there was great criticism about its gearbox. The car was available with three different petrol engines which were economical and refined but were not adequately powered if you consider the size of the car. The Ritmo diesel came into the scene in 1980 which had 1714cc engine. There were many other changes and modifications made to the Ritmo over the years.

Ritmo happened to be the first car that was built entirely by the robots. This made the production of the car quicker and cheaper though various shortcomings like unreliability, poor build quality and electric problems started showing up. The car also had mechanical problems like rapid wearing of gearbox and many owners experienced torrid driving experience as the car produced crashing sounds from underneath if a gear was selected in a hurry.

A 4-door version of the Ritmo was later developed by Seat and was called the Malaga. However, Malaga and many other Fiat models were killed off when Volkswagen took over Seat.