Dante's pick for 500's face

This is Dante - the car's launch mascot destined to appear in the Italian company's marketing campaign.

The cheeky character was chosen in a design competition through the www.fiat500.com website. After whittling the thousands of entries down to five, fans were asked to choose their favourite. The winner was by Italian Fabrizio Salmasso, who described his char-acter as: "Small, strong and independent - just like the beautiful new 500."

Among the shortlist of five was Cicalino, a cartoon-like character with the face of a car.