Abarth 500C EsseEsse and Abarth 695 Tributo Ferrari 2012 Review

The appeal of the Fiat 500 lies not so much in nostalgia alone; it’s more about the car’s cute-as-a-button character. Go to any meeting of a Fiat owners club and the 500 will outnumber almost any other model there.

Despite the car’s tiny footprint, it seems to cut across the gender divide, too — as likely to be owned by men as by women.

Or perhaps, in the great Italian tradition, the 500 is simply owned by men who are trying to seduce women...

Who knows, but what we can say without fear of contradiction is that Abarth versions of the little Fiat pile on even more character.

Chrysler, the new distributor for the Fiat brand in Australia, is committed to marketing Abarth as a brand in its own right. This explains why the distributor of Jeeps and other all-American metal recently laid on a drive program featuring the 500C Esse Esse and 695 Tributo Ferrari — both of which are based on the Fiat 500.

In keeping with the essence (pun intended) of the Abarth brand, the Tributo is heavily sports-oriented and pays tribute — as the name suggests — to Ferrari, the jewel in the Fiat Group’s crown.

Like anything wearing the Ferrari name, the Tributo doesn't come cheap. Nearly $70,000 ($69,990, to be precise) will get you into one of the 10 remaining local delivery cars as yet unsold.

So who would buy a car such as this? Opinions vary, but the consensus suggests prospective buyers already own at least one Ferrari. Ultimately then, the Tributo is very much a rich man, or woman's, toy.This is interesting because the Tributo requires a level of commitment not often a requisite of the typical hot hatch. During the drive program the little car impressed with its cornering, holding the road like a limpet and slicing through corners with a deliciously neutral stance — all the while feeding back to the driver what was happening where the front tyres met the tarmac.

Owners will revel in the Tributo's direct steering and lively handling, but merely tolerate the excessive torque steer that’s apparent even on dry roads. Likewise, they’ll endure, through gritted teeth, the ride quality, which is firm to a fault, due to the car's short wheelbase.

But it’s the packaging — especially the driving position —that is most likely to see the Tributo being on-sold to its second owner at an early life stage. It’s a hard car to live with on a daily basis, but better suited to being admired as part of a collection, or getting trotted out for an entertaining track day.

Entering the car is easy, providing you're sitting in the front and not the back. The hip point is high and the doors open wide, so no problem there; but once inside the driver will quickly note the packaging compromises.

The seats are fairly comfortable despite being aggressively contoured to provide firm support in hard cornering. But it’s the inherently poor relationship between seating position, steering wheel and pedals that’s the real letdown. We’ve commented on this previously:.

The footrest is narrow and badly located, leaving the left foot cramped. That said, we noted more room on the floor of the 500C also tested, which has no footrest. Since there's no reach adjustment for the steering wheel in either car, the driver proceeds, arms outstretched but with legs bent and thighs raised awkwardly due to the unfortunate pedal position.

The engine is the Tributo's best feature; it is pliable across the rev range and, given the car's low kerb mass, offers particularly athletic performance from its 1.4-litre displacement. Power is on tap immediately and accompanied by a raw, snarling exhaust note that fills the cabin.

Such a raucous blast from the rear of the car could lead the unenlightened to think it's rear-engined. Could it have been designed that way? Maybe so, as a sort of aural tribute to the original air-cooled Fiat 500, as well as some of the better-known classic Ferraris that have the engine positioned behind the driver.

Only one transmission is available to Tributo buyers — the automated MTA single-clutch transmission which suffers from the same sort of conflicted shifting that all such boxes do. Whether it's Selespeed, SensoDrive or Dualogic, there's yet to be a single-clutch robotised-manual-transmission that’s even remotely comparable to the snappy, smooth shifting fluidity of a twin-clutch transmission.

If you neglect to lift off the accelerator during gear changes the MTA will slur the shift, but still fail to smooth things the way a good twin-clutch does. It’s a self-shifter but one that calls upon the driver's ability to pick the change points in advance, and ease off the throttle in time for the box to effect the change with finesse. In other words, the driver needs to be well versed in manual shifting to achieve the best results from the MTA box.

With the 695 Tributo garaged, we stepped into the 500C Abarth (Esse Esse), which proved an altogether more comfortable, refined and appealing proposition. It rode better and still steered nicely enough, although there was some play in the straight-ahead. The cabrio's engine was quieter and smoother at high revs, but does forsake the Tributo's ballsy no-compromise engine note.

The MTA transmission performed no better in the 500C but the driving position was slightly more amenable thanks to the absence of the aforementioned footrest, and a seat recline that could be adjusted with the left hand, rather than trying to slide it painfully between door and seat, as in the Tributo.

Like other retro-styled cars (MINI comes to mind), the design of switches and instruments in either 500 model doesn't appear to have been guided at any point by ergonomic efficiency. The 'Sport' button is nearer the front passenger than the driver and the push-button gear changing in the centre fascia liberates space between the driver and front passenger, but it's not a setup you'll likely see in other cars.

That's the whole point, presumably. Little that pertains to either of these cars would be considered wholly acceptable in mainstream vehicles from other manufacturers. But in the Abarth range, allowing conformity to win over character is clearly not an option.

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