The pedal is to the floor and the speedometer is touching 180 km/h. This is not particularly fast for the Italian highways — the posted 130-km/h speed limit is universally ignored. But it is exceedingly fast for one of the smallest cars in the world. I realize this when we zip by an Alfa Romeo and a Mercedes, whose drivers give us bemused looks.
The car is Fiat's new Cinquecento — Italian for 500. It was launched on July 4 in Italy, 50 years to the day after the launch of its predecessor of the same name. Cars this small and this cute are not meant to be driven fast.
The new Fiat 500 is a mere 355 centimetres long and looks like half an avocado. In Europe, autos of this dimension are known as "city cars." They are designed primarily for ease of parking and torturing children in the cramped back seats, not patrolling the highways in search of sports cars to humiliate.
Yet here we are, blasting along the highway outside of Torino like a cruise missile. I am not afraid. That's a lie.
The driver, a Swiss-Italian automotive journalist named Graziano Guerra — guerra, ominously, is Italian for war — seems intent on pushing the car beyond the limits of its ability and I wonder when the first ball bearing will turn to molten liquid. Yet the marvellous midget feels as solid as a rock.
It is quiet inside — Graziano and I talk in normal voices. We are both big men and we are comfortable. When my turn to drive comes, I push the car to 160 km/h with nary a wobble.
He and I agree: Fiat has created a marvellous car, perhaps the best small car on the planet. It's a compelling combination of value, style, safety, performance and parkability, though reliability is unknown.
I know this car would obliterate machines like the (smaller) Mercedes Smart and the (larger) Toyota Yaris in the Canadian and American markets.
The competition will be happy to know Fiat has no plans to sell the 500 or any other product in North America. Another Fiat brand, Alfa Romeo, will reach North American dealerships in 2009 (or so Fiat says — it has made this promise before). But Alfa makes expensive sports cars, not city cars.
The launch of the new 500 was a national event. Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi went to Torino for the dazzling launch spectacle, which was created by the team behind the opening ceremonies of the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics. He was joined by 1,200 journalists and some 10,000 other guests from around the world.
The new 500 was put on display in piazzas and airports around the country. Owners of the old Fiat 500s, produced between 1957 and 1977, held rallies everywhere. It was all accompanied by an advertising blitz that emphasized Italian history. In the ads, the car appears only at the end.
Indeed, the Fiat 500, known as the "people's car," is as Italian as pizza, Vespas and Fellini movies. It's the car that gave Italians their first taste of four-wheeled mobility and freedom. It was cheap, simple, practical, pleasing to the eye and ever so tiny, with a length of only 294 centimetres. That's only four centimetres longer than the current Smart, which, unlike the 500, has no back seat.
The 500 took its name from the rear-mounted, air-cooled, two-cylinder engine with a displacement of 500 cubic centimetres. When the overworked engine expired, it could be unbolted and replaced with a new engine in the time it took mama to whip up another batch of gnocchi.
Almost 3.9 million of the original 500s were produced and hundreds of thousands are still on the road. Some of the survivors are fashion statements owned by collectors, who pay small fortunes to have them restored to mint condition. Most are still daily drivers, cluttered with shopping bags and rammed haphazardly into parking spots normally available only to scooters.
The new 500 had to be a nostalgic reinterpretation of the old 500, yet be completely new. Fiat, led by Italian-Canadian chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne, appears to have struck the right balance.
The new car, though bigger, is instantly recognizable as a 500, in the way that the new Mini Cooper shares a similar shape with the old Mini. That's where the similarity ends. Underneath the skin, the new 500 is a thoroughly modern machine.
It comes with two gasoline engines — 1.2-litre and 1.4-litre — and a turbo diesel of 1.3 litres with a claimed fuel consumption of only 4.2 litres/100 kilometres in combined city and highway driving. That's the equivalent of 67 miles a gallon.
There are seven airbags and electronic stability control is standard on some models, available on others.
The 1.4-litre car we drove was fairly fast, with a 0-100 km/h time of 10.5 seconds. The 500 is clearly not a sports car, nor is it meant to be. But it is no slug.
The handling is rewarding and the engine is responsive, though it has to be revved high to move ahead of the pack when the light turns green.
Marchionne has said he wants the 500 to be the "iPod" of cars — simple, popular and fashionable. To broaden its appeal among the fashion-conscious and young drivers, it is available in 500,000 possible design combinations. Options include 15 types of seat upholstery, 12 body colours, nine types of wheels, 19 different stickers, three interior fragrances, an iPod player, a USB port and chrome galore.
Loading the car up with goodies and the more powerful engines can jack up the base price of €10,500 ($15,000) to €14,500.
It's a pity the new 500 is not available in Canada. In terms of fun, driveability and space, it kills the Smart car. In terms of price, it kills the Mini. In terms of style, it kills the Yaris and rivals like the Honda Fit.
If Ford, GM and Chrysler were smart, they would build a city car like this. Fiat has made the smallest cars desirable again.
