I was talking on the phone yesterday to a salesman at a Fiat dealers and I asked him about the new hybrid engined cars. He said they will be taking orders in about a weeks time and anticipate deliveries in March. They haven’t actually got any demonstrators yet though.

I also asked him about the Abarth and he said he thinks they will use the new 1.3 engine from the new 500X. That already pushes out 150bhp and has been tuned to about 170.

Interesting times ahead.

I would take anything a dealer says with a truckload of salt.

I work for an actual car manufacturer and the dealers don’t get told all that much about new stuff coming out before the public.

I know of a dealer that swears blind to one of their customers that we’re building a car with x amount of seats when we categorically are not doing this. Salespeople love to read crap on auto express and Autocar and take it as fact.

Suspect the 1.3 will be the new Abarth engine though.