styling is a very personal thing. what you like may not be the same as what others like. that leaves the car designer with the problem to style a car in such a way that the largest number of the anticipated buyers will indeed buy one....whether that is done right here, time will tell. i have only seen images of the car so far, and in my experience cars may look quite a bit better or worse in reality. "Over-done version of really expensive cars" may be appropriate in some ways: because the car is relatively small some elements may look a bit too large - because they just need a certain physical size to be functional at all (seats, dials, frontscreenframe with integrated rollbar etc).
there is another aspect to this kind of styling. just like the Mazda Miata was styled externally more or less along the lines of classic british sportscars but never had the real charm that those had (although it was far better engineered underneath), these retro designs (New Beetle, Mini, Fiat 500) all try to fit a old and successful model of days long gone into a modern package that includes a lot of things the original could do without. the result: a more bulky, much heavier car that at first sight looks "classic" but in reality more or less like the original on steroids. so far i personally do not like the styling (they drive a whole lot better then the original), perhaps with the exception of the new Fiat 500 - a lot larger then the original but perhaps a new "classic" in its own right.
the new Fiat 124 Spyder does not look that is has been completely styled in Italy, it seems that various elements of the original Mazda and Fiat are combined into a new package that would also appeal to what i would call "american taste" where bulk often seems to win from subtleness.
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