Hi everyone,

Just been reading my copy of the Fiat Us! magazine that came in the post today.

There is quite a long review of the new TwinAir engine which is obviously jazzed up a bit as it's a marketing piece for Fiat. But it was nevertheless useful.

Was quite interested in the line talking about the sound of the new engine when it's being stretched a bit which is..."accompanied by a baritone voice that's characterful, charming and unique".

Converting marketing speak into everyday English, I'm not quite sure whether that's a positive thing or not!

Has anyone had a chance to hear how the new beast sounds?

hope these help

Goodness that sounds so, so so, so, so ......... Italian !!!!

Job well done

That's intersting, the shift up indicator comes in at just over 5000rpm. I thought most cars tell you to shift up a low revs like 2000-3000rpm? Does this mean that 5000rpm is the most economical point to change up? I suspect that it would recommend changing up sooner if you weren't using hard acceleration.

Sounds rather like a motorcycle to me. Call me old fashioned, but an engine which doesn't produce useful torque between 1500-2500 rpm would not suit my driving style.

jrkitching said:

Sounds rather like a motorcycle to me. Call me old fashioned, but an engine which doesn't produce useful torque between 1500-2500 rpm would not suit my driving style.

Click to expand...

I think it does. Maximum torque is at 1900rpm IIRC, which would make it ideal for you.

Advanced Driver said:

That's intersting, the shift up indicator comes in at just over 5000rpm. I thought most cars tell you to shift up a low revs like 2000-3000rpm? Does this mean that 5000rpm is the most economical point to change up? I suspect that it would recommend changing up sooner if you weren't using hard acceleration.

Click to expand...

it probably has something to do with the sport mode being on, but i'm not sure if it has it at all

the shift indicator will come on at the optimum point to change gear relative to how hard you are accelerating- so if you need to move quickly to join an M way it wont be showing till the engine is out of its powerband for that particular throttle opening- you can then make the shift 'up' icon disappear by pressing harder on the pedal....

it is responsive to your style, so on light throttle openings it encourages very early change ups.,, in harder driving it reacts differently..

i had the 1.2 s/s with this facility- in this model its primarily about efficiency and economy, but takes into account what you are doing.

Sounds like a lawnmower, i like it! In fact it sounds just like my Fiat 126 which i love the sound of

It looks like it has much shorter gear ratios than the 1.2. One of the things I like about the 1.2 is the flexibility. In my Panda 100HP I spend too much time changing gear. This one seems to have similar gearing to the 100HP. From the video it looks like it redlines at approx 30mph, 50mph, and 85mph in the first three gears.

I would have expected similar gearing to the 1.2. It has more torque than the 1.4 so it's probably going to feel very torquey.

durukan said:

hope these help

YouTube - Il sound del nuovo Fiat TwinAir
YouTube - Fiat 500 TwinAir
YouTube - Fiat 500 TwinAir acceleration and sound!

Click to expand...

Great thanks for that! The wonders of Youtube.

Well, it sounds different that's for sure! But I agree with other posters here, based purely on those videos I think that retro sound is actually quite nice.

It certainly keeps in with the overall retro feel of the 500, although obviously I'll be able to form a definitive opinion once I've had a go in one.

I like the sound of that. The 100hp version would be interesting.

Super Uwe said:

Hi everyone,

Just been reading my copy of the Fiat Us! magazine that came in the post today.

There is quite a long review of the new TwinAir engine which is obviously jazzed up a bit as it's a marketing piece for Fiat. But it was nevertheless useful.

Was quite interested in the line talking about the sound of the new engine when it's being stretched a bit which is..."accompanied by a baritone voice that's characterful, charming and unique".

Converting marketing speak into everyday English, I'm not quite sure whether that's a positive thing or not!

Has anyone had a chance to hear how the new beast sounds?

Click to expand...

I'ts like Bryn Terfel on a very good day

Advanced Driver said:

It looks like it has much shorter gear ratios than the 1.2. One of the things I like about the 1.2 is the flexibility. In my Panda 100HP I spend too much time changing gear. This one seems to have similar gearing to the 100HP. From the video it looks like it redlines at approx 30mph, 50mph, and 85mph in the first three gears.

I would have expected similar gearing to the 1.2. It has more torque than the 1.4 so it's probably going to feel very torquey.

Click to expand...

Interesting - we have Panda 100HP and 1.2, which replaced a written-off MJ. MJ called for most gear changing in stop/start, A-road motoring. It's early days with the 1.2 but I'd say the 100HP is just as flexible as the 1.2, helped by its relatively short gearing - almost 10% more revs per mph in sixth as the 1.2 in fifth.