Gadgetory

we got left the US market in the early 80s this tail between its legs and reputation for building stylish little cars they were built like crap now they're back trying to change exactly half of a shoe with this guy the 2012 Fiat 500 let's take it for a run check the legacy and check the tech now this Fiat 500 known as the nuova 500 has a lot riding on it nothing less than Fiats returns in the US but it's not technically a new car it was reintroduced back in 2007 to huge acclaim overseas like the new mini and the New Beetle is capitalized on a classic car that had good bones and like those cars it's much bigger than the original the first thing Fiats not resetting on the 500 is the iconic look you may not know the original 500 but bajillions of people did it was made from 55 to 75 and sold hand over fist this car looks remarkably like it even more so than the new mini looks like the old mini you'll notice it's got an undeniable cuteness though lots of rounded edges and a petite little non-threatening face clearly this car speaks to a stylish urban hip kind of a crowd now where does it fit in size it looks smaller than it is it's several feet longer than a smart fortwo six inches shorter than a Mini Cooper as well as being a little bit narrower than a Mini and slightly taller the key thing on our car is that it's a 500 C that means it's a Cabriolet you might call it a convertible but that's only part of the picture look how the top works its gutter to gutter cloth reinforced and nicely insulated with several stop points one is a giant sunroof position like this hit the button again and now you push it all the way back into a true cab a Cabrio 'la is a convertible that folds its top down kind of untidily on the rear deck it's a classic European thing and that's what this does another great trick notice how the high mounted center stop light is in position whether the top is up or down but it's the same light that's kind of a clever trick and below that you do have a trunk at all times since this doesn't fold into the trunk it never takes up any room now inside a 500 you've got lots of cute and lots of circle circles are their theme not quite as whimsical and kooky as a mini thank God but you've got a lot of circular themes here that give the car a friendly nature here's one of those retro touches this painted metallized surface that used to be a metal dashboard an old 500 interesting gauge in the middle here notice you've got concentric rings for the speedo and the tack and and then in the middle of course a round info gauge head-unit there's only one this is it you cannot get a built-in nav screen head unit on this car instead they offer you an optional clip-on TomTom that mounts in a special factory bracket up here but there's no integrated head unit that has a screen this basic readout takes you to your media choices that are straightforward am/fm no HD radio single slot CD right here and then in the - we have an aux and a USB right there the audio option we do have is Bose audio and you can see we've got evidence of that down here this is a ported subwoofer underneath the passenger seat now for a car that has fairly Spartan tech options interestingly you can get a Wi-Fi hotspot in this guy it's an ala carte option I believe it's dealer installed it's from auto net mobile a Bay Area company that makes in-car routers that go 3G to Wi-Fi it's 500 bucks now the last interesting part of technology in this car is blue and me it's a kind of a detuned version of Ford Sync voice command for the communications and the audio and a few other features here's the button for voice on the wheel help the available commands are message reader Eco Drive settings media player alright good so not a whole lot in there obviously no navigation commands and the last interesting tech option of this guy is the installation of GPS vehicle location tracking for a 450 bucks kind of a you know a poor man's LoJack or something now under the hood well the hood at of this car is a 1.4 liter sidesaddle inline-four that drags it around by the front wheels small displacement of course 1.4 is pretty tiny for this market so are the output numbers 101 horse 98 foot-pounds of torque zu 260 about 9.5 seconds mpg is 3038 with the manual if you get the automatic you shave about three mpg off each number and the key to making all those numbers work with that little engine is the weight of this car it's not even twenty four hundred pounds with a full tank of gas and a labradoodle in the backseat this car is gonna be all new to most people it's a platform you've never driven in the United States and the bottom line is it's fun the suspensions a little springy there's a little bit of body lean that you might not be used to in every car most cars trying to be really firm and planted the power on the engine is only really available from three grand and up this thing has no low-end grunts oh you might dump the clutch a couple times when you're first driving you speaking to that clutch it's very light a little bit of rubberiness in first and second the left side of the gate of the transmission you get used to it pretty quickly but it's not one of those super crisp air boxes but again the mission of the car is not performance wind noise is not bad with this top back and I had folks in the back seat and they say it wasn't a buffett fest that's a pretty good trick now that said overall this car feels very timid on power as I mentioned that's going to turn some people off who are used to driving below 3,000 rpm and they might come away from a test drive thinking it's gutless Europeans tend to row their motors better we don't it's kind of built for the European driving style the ride quality is very good nicely compliant but as I mentioned you've got some body roll in there it's a little wallowing especially for a little car and all this car comes off very refined it goes head-to-head with like a Ford Fiesta which is pretty much top of the pack in terms of refinement in that class which this one plays in but I think Fiats ace-in-the-hole is this the outside of the car says that European Jawad IV and then the inside of the car and the driving deliver on that that's a nice consistent experience okay this priceless 500cc for Cabriolet including that it's nineteen five plus delivery twenty thousand even for the ragtop not bad now on top of that couple ala carte options you can get that TomTom clip-on nav rig for four hundred bucks and to choose your phone you can also get the in-car wireless router for five hundred see the last remark the lounge package adds a lot of niceties the Bose audio serious automatic temperature control the alloy wheels but it also rolls in the automatic transmission and that's going to turn me off especially with its MPG reduction i stay with this 5-speed and an ala carte or aftermarket all the rest in general this car should make this car pretty darn proud