Warning a long winded rambling review by an old fart. Here is a MINI review on the 2014 Fiat Abarth that I drove yesterday. Met friend Jeff the Welshguy at MAG. He had his wife's MINI in for service. Off to lunch at Starliner Diner & after we were killing time waiting for his MINI to be done. I had the idea of stopping by Crown Fiat to kick some tires on the Abarth. Drove through the lot looking at cars. Man they have a shirt-load of 500L & other 500 models there. 500L is sort of an Italian countryguy thingy I guess. Found a couple of Abarths so we parked & proceeded to start tire kicking. I like the look of these cars. Whenever I see one I think, cool one less honking big SUV on the road. It's styling reminds me of the R50-R53 MINI with its retro styled theme. Sales guy Jay came out & asked if we wanted to drive one. Sure why not? He was back in a minute with a plate & keys. Jay starts the car & comments how he was glad it started. Seems some of these Fiats have been sitting on the lot a long time or maybe some of the Fiat of old is in the new ones. Now it gets strange, he climbs in the back seat? What the heck, don't you trust me with your Fiat? He says oh with the high performance Abarth he has to come along company policy yada yada yada. :crazy: We spend a few minutes getting seats & mirrors adjusted. This Abarth had a sunroof & man did it eat into the headroom. I very much like the retro themed interior. Seems like a happy place to be. This one had red leather & a white dash to match the outside. Jeff slides his seat back to crush Jay & we are off. Clunk! The brakes were rusted to the rotors, this car has been sitting quite a while. Then I notice is the check engine light is on. Jay says no problem so onward we go. The clutch grabs right at the top of its travel. Sort of felt like a clutch that is about to die. However it grabs & shifts fine. First couple of shifts are a bit jerky until I acclimate to the Italian clutch. The ride feels good for a short wheelbase car. I'm sure having 16" wheels & non-runflats helps this. Driving up SR 257 looking for curves the Abarth feels good. It is only a 5 speed & while the first four cogs feel good when you shift to fifth it falls on its face. Must be a very tall ratio. This car should have a six speed. One annoyance is a darned shift light constantly telling me to upshift way too early. I told Jay they need to put black tape over that light. He says it can be turned off. I found the curves, but also found slow traffic headed north. When needed the brakes felt very good. The pads feel like oem MINI pads, very good initial bite. I suspect when leaned on a lot they will fade like the oem MINIs too. The engine has decent power, but not what I'm used to with my slightly breathed on R53. I could live with the Abarth power. I turned around up past SR 42 & headed south. Car gods smiled on me, no traffic! When I took off south I was shifting just short of the fuel cutoff. Pulls pretty well & with one person on board it will be faster. Entering the corners I was downshifting to keep the snail on the boil. This car impressed me with its handling & feel. As the road straighten out & I slowed the pace to a rational level I asked back seat Jay what he thought. He told me it was his best Abarth test drive ever. Maybe he was just relieved I didn't stuff his Fiat. :devil: My review of Jay the salesguy is he was a good one. Knew his product & wasn't pushy, nice laid back attitude. I parked next to my MINI. The Abarth is tall & made my MINI look low & sleek to my eyes. There was a black JCW MINI coupe parked out front. It looked like Dark Helmet, but wasn't. I can't understand trading a JCW coupe for a Fiat? No I didn't buy it, but I did put it on my short list of replacement cars once my MINI is done.
Nice review Chuck.... Since the MINI's design team seems to be distancing themselves from what I like.... I would consider the Abarth.... With all the hoopla that MINI used with the reason the "Pedestrian Safety Issue" influenced the 3rd Gen..... I'll be interested to see what the new front end of the Fiat looks like..... Or is that excuse not going to be used by the Italian Job..... However.... I'm thinking we are on the cusp of a lot of small pocket rockets being developed by the other manufacturers..... Honda S660
Jalopnik reports that the Honda S660 concept, first seen at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show, has been given the green light for 2015 production. We'll see how it turns out.... Lot's can go wrong with the final product.... Honda S660 approved for 2015 production | Digital Trends
I like odd small quirky cars. I gots a MINI after all. I liked the Abarth very much more than the new new MINI I drove recently. It is not the prettiest thing although for me it doesn't look bad, plus it has a nice personality & the exhaust sings a sweet song. Just my opinion & that is only worth 1 day old donut. :donut1:
Yes that Honda looks good. If it comes out 90% that nice Mazda should be very worried what it will do to their MX5 sales.
I think he is concerned about the miles he has put on it since it was new. He bought it new and its miles are hard and fast miles from daily driving, twisties, MOTD and the track. Mine is the same year, and it is also my daily driver, track car and twisty and MOTD car, but mine only has 96k while his is over 121k.
Nice review Chuck. I think you and Welshy should make this a new recurring thing. Every month you meet up for lunch in Waldo, fill up on fried bologna sammiches and pie and then go test drive a different car. I'm sure we could teach you how to record videos on your phone, so that we could all enjoy the real time commentary. You could even come up with a special test drive route so that you could compare each of the cars. Now to come up with a catchy title....
This seems like another kei car that won't make it to the US or if it does it will not look the same as the car in the European/Asian market (European Si vs. US Si in previous years).
We've had a couple kei cars make it here. The Subaru Justy & the Toyota Starlet. I didn't care for the Justy, but I owned an 81 Starlet & it was a real hoot. Had a 1300 cc four pot, a 5 speed & rear wheel drive. A slow car little car that had big fun built into it. I learned how to drive a slow car fast in it. Like I said I like odd little cars.
121,000 miles is nothing for our cars. Steve from Custom Mini Shop had 265,000 on his, still fast, good looking car until it was totaled just last week :frown2: There is nothing that cannot be fixed or updated on these cars to justify getting rid of them , just sayin. About the Fiat, only one I would consider is the E500, all electric. I'm almost thinking of one just to save money :idea:
Funny you should write that, Brian. Every time I get to MAG with one of my MINIs, Chuck comes a-running, to take me out and about. Yeah, we have done the fried bologna thing, and just went for some Cuban food this week. So far we have "tested" the new F56 Cooper and a new Abarth. While I will always be a MINI man at heart, the Abarth at least does not destroy the mini concept, as it has not grown over the years like our MINIs. I guess I will always like small and relatively quick cars that do not punch massive holes in my wallet....
I dunno why all the haters about the Fiat. Hell, they own Ferrari, so let's all hate Ferrari, too. So, is Steve fixing his totaled car to "justify not getting rid of it"?
Well, Fiat did make an extended version of the 500, so they do have some larger variants. And the 500 hasn't been as around as long as the MINI to get corrupted. But give it time, I have full faith that Fiat will screw up the 500 just like BMW did the MINI.
I recently took a test drive in the new Subaru BRZ and it is definitely on the very short list for my next car....if and when.