Fiat 600′s sharp pricing might be the launchpad the brand needs

Pardon me while I momentarily drift into the sepia tints of olden days and how things were so much better then. I’m rapidly approaching 50 and it just comes more naturally to me with every passing day.

I’m referring to a time when Fiat was a true automotive colossus. Seriously, it was.

Founded in 1899, Fiat is one of the oldest motoring names, and frankly one of the greatest. It pioneered the very idea of a small, affordable car (with the Topolino of 1936) while also making some of the earliest and fastest racing cars (the 290hp 1910 S76 ‘Beast Of Turin’ thrills crowds to this day) and even luxury models (remember the Fiat 130 Coupe? No, you probably don’t, but take my word — it was lovely).

Fiat, for a time, effectively was Italian industry, generating massive dollops of GDP and turning the Agnelli family into titans of industry, not to mention style (Gianni Agnelli is arguably the best-dressed man who ever lived). Fiat, at one time, was rich enough to buy Ferrari purely on the basis that doing so would annoy Henry Ford II.

Today? Sad to say but Fiat is a shadow of its once-colossal self. It’s model range shrank along with its market share, and where once Fiat could be reliably bet upon to produce a European bestseller (Punto, Uno, Tipo, Panda…) it has fallen to producing more or less only the tiny 500 in electric and petrol forms.

This is a company that once held a 30 per cent Irish market share, which had the best-selling car in Ireland in the best-selling year ever for cars in Ireland (the Punto in 2000) and which pioneered the likes of diesel direct injection and more.

The fall from its lofty perch has been painful for Fiat, and it eventually had to surrender both its majority stakeholding in Ferrari (now floated on the stock market) and become a merger partner with PSA Peugeot-Citroen-Opel to form the vast Stellantis Group.

However, eventually a corner must surely be turned and maybe – and it’s a big maybe – this is it, with the introduction of the Fiat 600. With the 600, Fiat is entering two of the most significant sectors of the market, that for hybrids and that for compact crossovers.

While the 600 will be available as a fully-electric 600e model (with a 400km claimed range) it’s likely that for Irish customers the more significant model will be the 600 Hybrid, which uses a compact 48-volt hybrid system which is kind of a half-way house between a mild-hybrid (which are really just beefed-up stop-start systems) and a full hybrid of the sort offered, to great success in this market, by Toyota.

Most crucially of all, this is a very well-priced Fiat. At a basic price of €28,995, it’s significantly more affordable than its Stellantis Group stablemates, the Jeep Avenger and Peugeot 2008, and offers an automatic hybrid model for less than the cost of a basic petrol manual version of either of those cars. It also undercuts the big-selling Toyota Yaris Cross, one of the most popular cars in the country right now. This well-equipped top-spec La Prima model costs €33,995, which is about where most rivals’ ranges are only getting going.

The 600 does so while looking rather good. Okay, so for the most part it’s the same formless blob of SUV-ish shape that everyone is doing right now, but the detailing around the lights – the mascara effect at the edges of the headlights, and the complex lines of the brakes lights – gives it a bit of character, and it makes a better fist of up-sizing the 500′s style into a larger, four-door car than did the unloved old 500X.

Inside, you’ll rapidly spot the kinship between the 600 and the Jeep Avenger. Both cars share a common platform, engines, and electric gubbins, and the cabins are close to identical in places. Really, only the Fiat’s ovoid sweep of the dashboard panel and its little hooded instrument panel (digital instruments come as standard) give it a character separate to that of the Jeep. Still, it would be churlish to complain when overall quality is fine, the seats (leather wrapped and embossed with repeating Fiat logos in this top-spec La Prima test car) are comfy, and space is good.

Well, good-ish. When it comes to practicality, the Fiat lacks the full-width dashboard shelf of its Jeep cousin, and space in the rear seats is really quite limited, especially in terms of legroom. The back of a Fiat 600 is no country for growing teens.

The boot, at 360-litres, isn’t wonderfully large but it’s just about big enough to count as useful. The big 10.25-inch touchscreen looks good but is, as is almost always the case, fiddly to use although thankfully there are proper physical heating and air conditioning controls.

The hybrid system is based around the long-serving 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol engine originally designed by Peugeot and Citroen as the ‘PureTech’ range. Here, it gets a new six-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox (for which you pick gears using a slightly fiddly push-button selector) into which a 21kW electric motor is integrated, powered by a compact 1.2kWh battery.

It produces 100hp and 205Nm of torque, neither of which sound very much (especially when ranged against the 1,275kg kerb weight) but actually the 600 feels pleasantly fleet when out and about. The little three-cylinder engine thrums happily when revved, and the 600 will default to electric-only power for short (very short) bursts.

It may not be as economical as it ought to be, though. Admittedly, this is based on a short test drive with minimal urban mileage, but we could only record 5.9-litres per 100km against Fiat’s claimed 4.9-litres per 100km figure. That’s not great, but perhaps the fact that this was an un-broken-in engine with fewer than 1,000km on the clock gives the 600, for now, an escape clause.

There will eventually be a sporting Abarth version of the 600, but this La Prima model doesn’t display much in the way of enthusiasm for corners. That said, the steering – accessed via a neat two-spoke steering wheel – is nicely weighted and feels good, and the 600 flows perfectly well along a tight and twisty back road. Not fun, exactly, but certainly fine. It’s probably best to avoid the 18-inch wheels of this top-spec model, though. They add a bit too much spikiness to the ride quality.

Will Irish buyers flock, in their droves, to this 600 as once they did to the 127, the Uno, and the Punto? Probably – sadly – not, no.

Fiat just doesn’t have the market presence right now to drive that kind of sales success, but at least this new model gives it something with which to fight.

It’s not an exceptional car in any sense, but it’s cute and pleasant to drive, and if the fuel economy works out better for you than it did for us, then it certainly represents sharp value in one of the most hotly-contested segments of the market.

Will it propel Fiat back to its former colossal stature? Ask me again in 50 years…

Lowdown: Fiat 600 1.2 Hybrid La Prima

Power: 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol engine with 21kW motor and 1.2kWh lithium-ion battery producing 100hp and 205Nm of torque and powering the front wheels via a six-speed automatic transmission

CO2 emissions (annual motor tax): 109g/km (€180)

Fuel consumption: 4.9l/100km (WLTP)

0-100km/h: 9.1secs

Price: €33,995 as tested, 600 starts from €28,995

Our rating: 3/5

Verdict: Distinctive styling and a pleasant driving experience, but Fiat has much work to do convincing Irish buyers that it’s worth a punt(o) again