Abarth 500 review
by David Finlay (12 February 2009)
We'll get to the details shortly, but here's the thing that is going to make all the difference to the success of the Abarth 500. The less powerful Fiat-badged car it's based on is already, surely, one of the cutest models you can buy today, and the Abarth - with its deep front airdam, side skirts, roof spoiler, rear diffuser and various vents - is if anything even more visually charming. I think I would almost be prepared to buy one simply to be able to look at it every day.
But of course that would be missing the point. The Abarth 500 isn't simply meant to appeal to the visual senses. It also has to be a lot of fun to drive, and to that end it has been fitted with a 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol engine producing a maximum of 135bhp. That's enough to give the car a top speed of 128mph and a 0-62mph time of 7.9 seconds, and the suspension has been stiffened and the ride height lowered to match.
There are two great, though apparently contradictory, things about that engine. One is that it sounds like a real little screamer, giving an increasingly hilarious sort of gurgling bark as you head towards the red line. The other is that it isn't a screamer at all: maximum power is developed at 5500rpm, and there is enough grunt much further down the rev range to ensure that you're very unlikely to drop below the power band. Some people may be a bit sniffy about the fact that there are only five gears, not six, in the box, but to be frank the 500 doesn't need any more than that.
Officially the fuel economy and CO2 figures are very impressive considering the car's performance, at 43.4mpg and 155g/km respectively. But that's just because the turbocharger will hardly come into play during the economy test, which is hardly a reflection of what's going to happen in the real world. Use the 500 the way Abarth intended and you can forget about seeing 40mpg or anything like it, though you will still pay tax as if the car really was emitting just 155g/km of CO2.
The engine's behaviour can be made to change by pressing the dash-mounted Sport button, which makes it respond much more quickly to the throttle pedal. The Sport mode also firms up the steering, and personally I would use it all the time for this very reason, since otherwise the steering is so over-assisted you can hardly tell there's any connection to the road wheels.
The Abarth 500 isn't quite the sharpest-handling hot hatch on the market - you wouldn't mistake it for a MINI, say - but it's a delight to drive nevertheless, with good turn-in, loads of grip and a lovely front/rear balance. The ride is quite firm if you stick with the standard set-up of 195/45 Continental tyres on 16" wheels, and so harsh on the optional (£175) 205/40x17 Pirellis that it makes the streets of Poole feel like the Giant's Causeway, but the latter arrangement enhances the impression that this is a true sporty Italian small car of the old school, and I imagine a lot of people will prefer it that way.
Not all of the launch event took place on public roads. We also visited the Gurston Down hillclimb, a splendid little venue which has only one really tricky corner (a right-hander with a steep downhill approach taken at phenomenal speed by the British Championship single-seaters which compete there each year) and is otherwise reasonably simple but with plenty of opportunities to gain or lose fractions of a second.
At this venue the standard Abarth 500 showed itself to be a competent performance road car rather than something you would want to go racing with (despite the fitment of the Blue&Me MAP portable navigation system which includes motorsport-based data acquisition), though its ability to put down a lot of power before starting to lose traction remained impressive even here.
Gurston Down also gave us our only opportunity to try out 500s fitted with the esseesse kit. This costs £2500 and arrives in a wooden crate which you're expected to keep as a souvenir, though the actual fitment has to be done by an Abarth technician within 12 months of 20,000km (12,500 miles) of the car's first registration.
The kit includes a high-flow air filter and an ECU upgrade to raise maximum power to 160bhp. The brakes and suspension are uprated too, and the 205/40x17 wheel/tyre package becomes standard, while you also get a tyre pressure monitoring system and a special key cover. On the hillclimb course the extra power was the most evident change, but the car also felt a lot sharper than the standard one I'd driven a few minutes earlier; both effects would be much more obvious on public roads, where I imagine the esseesse might turn out to be one of the jolliest hot hatches you can buy.
The Abarth 500 costs £13,600 in standard form, and £16,100 with the esseesse kit. Maybe that's too much for a piece of automotive sculpture, so I'll have to revise my ambition of buying one simply for the visual effect, but it seems a reasonable amount for a car which is very nearly as appealing to drive - and this is saying a lot - as it is to gaze at.
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