Following its launch success in Turin, Paris and Berlin, it is now London’s turn to put on a great show for the new Fiat 500 and this afternoon the little car clambered onto the giant London Eye.

Following its success in Turin, Paris and Berlin, it is now London’s turn to put on a great show for the new Fiat 500 and this afternoon as final preparations get underway the Fiat 500 clambered onto the London Eye.

Organised by Fiat Group Automobiles UK Ltd, the event is scheduled for the evening of 21 January when the London night sky will be “lit up” by an extraordinary spectacle of light, music and colour. The most eagerly awaited moment will be 8 o’clock, as Big Ben strikes the 500th hour of 2008, and a Fiat 500 “flies” in the London sky.

This afternoon one example of the Car of the Year 2008 award winner was placed in one of the 32 glass capsules of the British Airways London Eye, at 135 metres the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe. Inaugurated in 2,000 and now a symbol of the city, the Eye dominates the Thames skyline and from it you can admire London’s most famous monuments in a ride of about 30 minutes. The huge Ferris wheel has been closed since early January for regular maintenance and will spring back into life on Monday; the break in operations providing a perfect opportunity to put the 500 into position.

The 500, a 1.4 Lounge version, one of more than half a dozen which will be involved in Monday's glamorous event, arrived at the site of the imperious London Eye on the back of a flat bed truck and it was manoeuvred into the capsule after a very complex operation. As it was loaded up, the luminous countdown timer, which mimics the 500's individual dashboard instrument display, and which is positioned alongside the giant wheel, read 480 hours, meaning that just 80 more hours remained before the 500 is launched in the UK.

The extraordinary performance on Monday evening can watched in a live radio broadcast and from a viewing point close to the Eye. This exclusive area will host more than 2,000 people (authorities, journalists, businessmen and personalities from the worlds of entertainment, fashion and sport). And after the Fiat 500 takes off into the skies of London, the evening will be brought to a close by the exhilarating music of Mika (winner of 4 World Music Awards 2007).

Created and produced by Arc Worldwide, the event will also see the participation of other musical groups and Virgin Radio presenters, and there will be a spectacular drive-past of historic Fiat 500s as well as some of the new models.