Fiat 500 range gets freshened up

A BLINK-and-you’ll-miss-it update of the Fiat 500 range has just gone on sale across the UK.

Sensibly, Fiat has chosen not to mess with the city car’s biggest selling point – its retro styling inspired by the original Nuova 500 of the 1950s – but it has treated the range to some new technology instead, including a digital instrument display and a new version of the company’s award-winning TwinAir engine.

The updated Fiat 500, which starts at £10,600, is available to buy now.

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The Fiat 500 MPW is a stretch too far

By unveiling a seven-seater version of the 500, Fiat has finally solved one of the world’s great ongoing mysteries. Finally, the question of who ate all the pies has been answered!

The 500 MPW got my automotive gag reflex going when I first clocked eyes on it a couple of weeks ago. Since then, I’ve seen it through increasingly squinty, curious eyes, trying to make sense of where it’s coming from. I’m a huge fan of the 500 and understand it’s been the biggest Italian success story since that chap finished painting the roof of the Sistine Chapel. I also understand that BMW put the MINI through the Supersize Me treatment and the bloated result, the Countryman, was a sales hit.

Naturally, the bosses in Turin have put two and two together… and ended up with seven. While I was already struggling with the recently inflated version of Fiat’s city slicker, the 500L, the new MPW really is a stretch too far. To my mind at least, it’s the ugliest automotive offering since Ford put the Scorpio out of its misery.

Which is a shame, because I’ve always had a soft spot for the 500 (and pretty much every other tiny Fiat, for that matter). In fact, a glorious hour at the helm of an Abarth 500C Essesse, enjoying the sunshine through its open roof, reveling in its handling and listening to its little four-pots sing as you headed up through the gears, is among my most treasured motoring memories. The 500 is a car whose sole reason for existence is to make being small into something fun. A seven-seater family bus it is not.

Chances are the 500L MPW will be keenly priced, comfortable, spacious and reliable, but then so is a Skoda Yeti, or a Nissan Qashqai, neither of which look like a smaller car that’s spent a month eating nothing but Melton Mowbrays. I’m also fairly confident that people, even ones with a vague sense of aesthetics, will buy it, just as they did with the MINI Countryman.

All of that I understand, but what I don’t is that someone, at the same company which gave you the beautiful Barchetta, the challenging Coupe and the chic, original reinvention of the 500 clearly looked at it and thought “Mmmm, that’s nice.”

Slightly bloated beauty, in this case, is definitely in the eye of the beholder.

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Prepare to fire up the... Fiat 500L

FIAT'S taken a leaf out of the fashion world's book when it came to labelling an upscaled version of its retro-styled 500.

Regulars at Topshop, Primark et all will be more than familiar with the thinking behind this new version's name - it is, quite simply, the 500L, L being for Large. Think MINI Countryman, then, but inspired by Italian chic rather than British bravado.

Behind the plus-sized outfit there's a blend of familiar Fiat technology - including the award-winning, eco-friendly TwinAir engine which has already proven a bit of a hit in the smaller 500 - and an interior which pitches the new arrival straight into mini MPV, with a higher roofline than a Vauxhall Meriva and more interior space than Volkswagen's new Golf. It's also being priced aggressively to undercut the Countryman, with £14,990 getting you either into a Pop Star or an Easy version, which are identically priced but kitted out to appeal to two very different kinds of customer.

It's got all the sensible boxes ticked and - if the smaller Panda and 500 are anything to go by - be grin-inducingly pleasant from the driver's perspective, but this sector of the market is as much about style as substance and to truly be in with a chance of stealing the march on MINI it'll have to look the part too.

That's where I worry for the 500L's chances, because to my eyes at least the new arrival looks like a 500 that's spent a few weeks gorging itself on the Melton Mowbrays. That's a criticism I'd level at the MINI Countryman too, but then a revisit to the cute lines of Italy's original people carrier, the 600 Multipla, the new Fiat is not.

This 500's extra girth means there's more to love, but the attraction, if you fell for its smaller sister, probably won't be as instant.

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Fiat 500: The brilliant small car I completely forgot about

WORD reaches me from north of the border that my sister’s looking to treat herself to a festive gift of the four-wheeled variety

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It’s a straightforward enough challenge; she’s looking for something small, good looking, reliable and easy to run, for around the four grand mark. Not that she’s going to take any advice off her car nut brother – it’s Life On Cars tradition that whenever someone actually asks me for advice on cars, they listen dutifully to whatever considered opinion I can come up with, pause reflectively for a moment, and then ignore it and buy the car they had their heart set on anyway. This explains why so many people I know own a Vauxhall Corsa.

Then again, my suggestions were slightly more sensible than my sister’s other half’s, who being even more of a petrolhead than I am pointed me in the direction of a Lancia Beta Spider (Google it) which could be under your Christmas tree for just £1,650. A beautiful Italian roadster which would be fine for a classic car bore like me, but hardly the sort of thing you’d rely on to get you in and out of Glasgow on a daily basis!

Trying to keep things as sensible as possible, I went for the original Ford Ka, Toyota’s Aygo, the Citroen C1 and – whisper it softly – the new MINI, with the Peugeot 106 GTi as the wildcard I secretly hoped my sister would go for.  All of which are reliable enough to survive life tooling around a city centre for days on end, small enough to squeeze into even the tightest parking spaces and – most importantly for my sister, someone who’s far more stylish than I am – blessed with the sort of chic and sense of fun that, say, a Nissan Micra just isn’t.

I was quietly pleased with my carefully selected shortlist, right up until the point when my sister mentioned the one small car I’d forgotten about; the Fiat 500. Her argument is that it’s far cuter than just about any other small car on the second-hand market (as long as it’s bought in the right colour), it’s got perfectly good underpinnings (which is true, given it’s a former European Car of the Year), and there’s enough of them around for her to pick up a decent one. For what it’s worth, I think the mechanically identical Panda is the better small Fiat, but for what my sister wants the 500’s perfect. I’m just annoyed I didn’t think of it earlier.

To be fair, I agree with her. If you can think of a better suggestion, feel free to send them in to the usual Champion address. Although – in true Life On Cars tradition – she’ll only ignore it anyway. Merry Christmas.

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