A good friend of mine took her Exige S in for service or somesuch and was given one the special Ferrari edition as a courtesy car. She's a steering dynamics developer or something like that, develops steering feel and the like for a number of manufacturers:
Ah well, i'll bow to the lauren pressure...
Review:
Fiat 500 Abarth, Ferrari dealer limited edition, cost £28,000
Summary: I wouldn't buy one
Fans of the original 500 probably think the styling looks ok, but perhaps it's because I wasn't exposed to the original that I think the front looks fugly - like one of those squashed face cats, or something that has been pre crashed into a hedge. Either way, it's probably a bit marmite, and i'm definitely a marmite hater. On the other end of the scale, some of the vehicle integrity guys from work saw the photo on my facebook, and emailed me at work to see if he could have a go... given his job is to drive around and assess all sorts of fancy cars I thought it was quite funny that he 'wanted to be seen in it' whereas I really really didn't.
Anyway... looks aside, it's actually a very good implementation of the class of car that it is, although the flaws of that type of car are amplified for the sporty feel. The ride is really really choppy and harsh, and if you are a passenger expect to want to hurl after a bumpy A or B road. It's not much better when you are driving, and you also have to contend with the lofty seating position relative to the pitch and roll centers does nothing for the confidence in cornering.
Unlike the previous fezza garage special edition (500 off, but not abarth), this car actually implements the steering, brakes and accelerator feel in a decent way. You can drive it out of sport mode - something that you really couldn't do with the previous fezza special (gutless and delayed accelerator, brakes resulted with head on dash, steering was a slightly dodgy EPAS tune which was far too light).
Brakes:
The Abarth brakes are just so much better - no head on dash problems, and they work well enough. There is also an Anti roll back feature on the brakes where it applies the handbrake (or it could have been the standard brakes - it is possible the brakes were some electromechanical systems...) to stop you rolling back when you take you release the brake if the gear is against the gradient (i.e. if you have 1st selected pointed up a hill, and reverse selected pointed down a hill, the car will hold for about 2 seconds to give you time to get on the throttle and release the clutch).
Steering:
Unfortunately the dial on the EPAS has been turned all the way to 11 for stationary.. which is just a bit too light, and leads to a giveaway for EPAS as at stationary, with just one arm on the wheel the EPAS resistance actually allows you to turn the wheel, and you get to feel some motor cogging through the steering... But that's actually a very small blemish, and actually the EPAS implementation is one of the best i've tried. The lightness could be got away with if the car wasn't so stiff and choppy, but it is and so there was no confidence on bumpy roads as it was really easy to get induced motions in the steering from bouncing along. The steering did weight up a bit more in sport mode which was loads better, but there was still a pretty light window which made the car feel a little unresponsive for small steering inputs. Still, not bad.
Accelerator:
The engine mapping was really good on this car - both on the non sport and sports mode. In fact it's quite funny to change between the two and see what effect it has on your crusing speed on the motorway. The sports mode throttle map is really quick and responsive, and the non sports mode is just nicely damped for when you don't want to raz quite so much.
The piece de resistance of this car has to be the exhaust. The tune is absolutely perfect, giving a gorgeous sound outside the car, and a little coming through to the interior. As the sound makes such a difference to the way you perceive accel, I have to hand it to Fiat that they have done a really good job here.
The car had bucket type seats, but as far as I could tell, they were just too high, and not designed for anyone in particular and therefore fitted no one in particular, and were mounted on stupidly high runners. That would be the first thing to be put right if you actually owned one (which as i said at the top, I wouldn't).
Ah well, i'll bow to the lauren pressure...
Review:
Fiat 500 Abarth, Ferrari dealer limited edition, cost £28,000
Summary: I wouldn't buy one
Fans of the original 500 probably think the styling looks ok, but perhaps it's because I wasn't exposed to the original that I think the front looks fugly - like one of those squashed face cats, or something that has been pre crashed into a hedge. Either way, it's probably a bit marmite, and i'm definitely a marmite hater. On the other end of the scale, some of the vehicle integrity guys from work saw the photo on my facebook, and emailed me at work to see if he could have a go... given his job is to drive around and assess all sorts of fancy cars I thought it was quite funny that he 'wanted to be seen in it' whereas I really really didn't.
Anyway... looks aside, it's actually a very good implementation of the class of car that it is, although the flaws of that type of car are amplified for the sporty feel. The ride is really really choppy and harsh, and if you are a passenger expect to want to hurl after a bumpy A or B road. It's not much better when you are driving, and you also have to contend with the lofty seating position relative to the pitch and roll centers does nothing for the confidence in cornering.
Unlike the previous fezza garage special edition (500 off, but not abarth), this car actually implements the steering, brakes and accelerator feel in a decent way. You can drive it out of sport mode - something that you really couldn't do with the previous fezza special (gutless and delayed accelerator, brakes resulted with head on dash, steering was a slightly dodgy EPAS tune which was far too light).
Brakes:
The Abarth brakes are just so much better - no head on dash problems, and they work well enough. There is also an Anti roll back feature on the brakes where it applies the handbrake (or it could have been the standard brakes - it is possible the brakes were some electromechanical systems...) to stop you rolling back when you take you release the brake if the gear is against the gradient (i.e. if you have 1st selected pointed up a hill, and reverse selected pointed down a hill, the car will hold for about 2 seconds to give you time to get on the throttle and release the clutch).
Steering:
Unfortunately the dial on the EPAS has been turned all the way to 11 for stationary.. which is just a bit too light, and leads to a giveaway for EPAS as at stationary, with just one arm on the wheel the EPAS resistance actually allows you to turn the wheel, and you get to feel some motor cogging through the steering... But that's actually a very small blemish, and actually the EPAS implementation is one of the best i've tried. The lightness could be got away with if the car wasn't so stiff and choppy, but it is and so there was no confidence on bumpy roads as it was really easy to get induced motions in the steering from bouncing along. The steering did weight up a bit more in sport mode which was loads better, but there was still a pretty light window which made the car feel a little unresponsive for small steering inputs. Still, not bad.
Accelerator:
The engine mapping was really good on this car - both on the non sport and sports mode. In fact it's quite funny to change between the two and see what effect it has on your crusing speed on the motorway. The sports mode throttle map is really quick and responsive, and the non sports mode is just nicely damped for when you don't want to raz quite so much.
The piece de resistance of this car has to be the exhaust. The tune is absolutely perfect, giving a gorgeous sound outside the car, and a little coming through to the interior. As the sound makes such a difference to the way you perceive accel, I have to hand it to Fiat that they have done a really good job here.
The car had bucket type seats, but as far as I could tell, they were just too high, and not designed for anyone in particular and therefore fitted no one in particular, and were mounted on stupidly high runners. That would be the first thing to be put right if you actually owned one (which as i said at the top, I wouldn't).
