Fiat Coupe Review

16V Turbo was the best driver's car, but the 20V was faster!

Under the bonnet lurks the newer 5 cylinder 20 valve Turbocharged motor shoving out a healthy 220bhp. The striking looks are still there the only problem is everyone else is chucking out sharp looking coupe's too which rather waters down its visual impact.

We maybe getting used to large headline Horsepower figures, with a raft of Japanese imports and limited editions claiming 280bhp or more, and it may take the gloss off FIATS figures slightly, but lets be realistic this is more horse's than the standard pant wetting Impreza and is big power how ever you colour it.

Taking a look at the performance figures the coupe runs to a truly quick but academic 152mph, the acceleration might surprise you in that its in the low sixes when you may hope that such a small car with big power might just break into the fives. But lets bear in mind that its still only front wheel drive. Granted it has a limited slip dif and reasonable thick rubber, but the laws of physics are immutable, and fast starts transfer the weight of the car rearwards leaving only the front rubbers to throw away the power in a barrage of wheel spin

On first and gentle acquaintance you really don't believe that the power is there. The engine is smooth, vice free and powerful almost lusty low down, and you can potter about through traffic with zero drama aided by the surprisingly light clutch and positive gear change. Just as your beginning to wonder what all the fuss is about, the turbo spins up in a millisecond and the engine is transformed from boring to beast, your pressed hard back into the seat in a searing explosion of power. Throttle position become secondary and the needle screams around the rev counter on a collision course with the red line. forget turbo lag and spool up time this is like night and day like, flicking the light switch , just place the needle in the appropriate half of the Rev counter and hold on for dear life.

In this the revised version FIAT have sensibly left alone all the good bits, the sharp style is unchanged, and the simple but effective dash is retained. The only thing which I would change are the rather ugly alloy wheels which are a little too heavily stylized for my taste. The blue paint job doesn't inspire me either, but then neither did the red one as I am rather partial to the yellow ones.

That aside it remains an inspired design, it may be ageing slightly in these days of monthly facelifts, but that's probably more due to familiarity and other marques new found more daring design focus, than any real inherent faults in the style.

Being the top dog version it of course comes leather trimmed, but its in an almost simplistic sixties style, the leather may be nice but the seats are realistically not any better than the cloth trimmed version, which are pretty good already. Even with the sunroof and air conditioning they don't give an impression that the coupe has gone soft and it retains its hard edged sporty feeling. If anything as makers accelerate the specification bloat of most cars, it seems to have grown even harder

The pistol gripped steering wheel is still there and nice as ever , but now its effect is improved by the higher ratio rack from the Alfa GTV, which give it lightning flickablity and response. Ride quality was always going to be a secondary completely over the top, the newer engines drivability off the boost makes it a perfectly faithful companion when your not in the mood, whilst its instantaneous boost gives it enough hooligan edge to keep most of us happy. Further more its not even too much of a guzzler of unleaded, in fact its barely any worse than the conventionally aspirated version overall. The only real fly in the ointment is the rather hideous insurance grouping that it has.

Still a true great and future classic

Every now and again, Fiat, Italy's nationalised car maker, springs a surprise on the unsuspecting public....

And virtually every time, it comes in the form of a sports car. Why we are so surprised is rather confusing. Despite being synonymous with small but worthy cars for the proletariat, the Fiat badge hardly emits a single faint flicker of glamour.

Yet there have been a whole succession of off the wall Fiats - 850 Coupe, Dino Spyder, X19 and, more recently, the Barchetta with its heavy Alfa Spider overtones.

Fiat are of course the parent arm of Ferrari and their Iconic object d'art cars and along with Alfa Romeo and Lancia, it's fair enough that Fiat should leave the big saloon and supercar markets to their smaller siblings. As Fiat rebadges its marques into their perceived market, it is all the more remarkable that this car escaped from Italy wearing a Fiat badge. Yes, we know it shares it's components with an Alfa, but it is cheaper and more convincing bearing the Fiat badge.

If the Pininfarina penned and built body doesn't do anything for you, then it's time to check your pulse as you're probably dead. By its very nature, the shape is one that you will either love or hate. Those who recognise that this is something quite special, hand-built, not by Fiat but by Pininfarina at their Grugliasco plant, at a rate of just eighty cars a day will love its outrageous show-car styling. Those who think cars are a transport system for the express purpose of delivering occupants from A to B with as little fuss as possible and those of you who shop with the aid of a Golden Retriever will find it a pointless exercise in showing off and hate it for daring to exist in the modern climate of cuddly, environmentally friendly, passenger safety friendly, pedestrian friendly PC world.

Just check out the daring cut of the wheel arches and those fabulous headlamp blisters
This is a car full of exquisite touches, a car at which you can just stare and stare and stare and stare and stare and

Recent models have brought in the new stronger, 5 cylinder motor but it will be a while before that depreciates far enough for most of us to start dreaming. For now, we have to be content with 4 cylinders and 16 valves, although the uncouth hooligan turbo nutter is waiting for those of you who are never satisfied.

The 16 valve endows the older car with enough poke for most of us and anyway, that little bit slower-going just gives everyone a chance to hang their tongues out and stare enviously. It's a typical Fiat motor with a slightly gruff and metallic raspy sound - it would be called tiring in normal cars; in the Coupe it's called harmonious. The engine has a good strong mid-range allowing excellent flexibility and superb pick-up from low revs. This motor featured an aftermarket exhaust can of incredible volume (size), it may have looked the part but it didn't add to the aural effects and the suspicion was that it may have degraded the top end performance somewhat.

Apart from the aural bombardment, the other tactile aspects of the car were equally entertaining. In modern saloon cars, most things are light enough for even the most pansy of drivers to live with - light brakes, light clutch, light accelerator, light gearchange, light steering etc etc. The whole thing takes a minimum amount of effort, minimum effort means maximised customer coverage. This Fiat doesn't go down that road; instead everything is an effort, but the effort is rewarded by the feeling of control, of harmonious balance, of man and machine melting into one.

The steering is solid and meaty, giving reassuring feedback, telling you the details of the road surface below. Okay, fair enough quite a few manufactures have now realised that overlight steering is not really helpful, (Audi please note), but how many cars actually require you to put a little effort into braking and gear changing? The brakes require a much firmer shove than most modern saloons but the pay-back is that you can squeeze the anchors on hard, feeling for the squealing break-off point before the ABS cuts in. On most modern ABS equipped saloons you just touch the the pedal, brakes lock on, ABS cuts in, easy, safe, no brainer driver de-skilling.

The gearchange is much more interactive than normal cars. The lever is slightly tall, the throw slightly long, it arcs up at a slightly odd angle and to set it into motion, the clutch requires a dose more thigh than normal. The response it gives though, is one of perfect mechanical fluidity, hard charging in gear, consciously stressed thigh and dip clutch, the engine revs drop instantly, shove firmly towards the next gear and it locks home perfectly with mechanical precision, drop the clutch whilst stamping on the go pedal and the little Coupe fires forward. Get it right and it's massively rewarding, but of course it gives less margin for error than other modern "User friendly, idiot-proof systems"

Quite a number of the original four-cylinder Coupes found homes in the UK, and Fiat dealers are having little difficulty selling the latest five-cylinder versions to former Ford Probe and Vauxhall Calibra customers - the Fiat delivers exactly what Ford and Vauxhall promised!

Sit behind the chunky three-spoke steering wheel and there are designer cues everywhere. check out the body-coloured metal strip that wraps itself around the cabin (it's plastic but plastic metal is far more convincing than plastic wood!) and the Pininfarina signature on the dashboard.

The expected Italian chimpanzee driving position doesn't materialise once behind the wheel. The seats, steering wheel and pedals are all well sited and the wheel is both height and reach-adjustable. The seats, covered in bearable material, do a reasonable job of supporting your backside, they hold you tightly enough through tight bends and generally do what seats are supposed to do. But on the whole you're too busy enjoying yourself to pay much attention. The switch layout is probably an ergonomic nightmare but who cares, it looks good and racey.

Despite the lines, this is a reasonably practical car - by coupe standards anyway. You can fit more than a cagoule and a toothbrush in the boot and, as long as they're not very tall, you can just about get two adults in the back - though it would help if they were already intimate. An even better idea would be to remove the back seats altogether getting extra load capacity and dispensing with the chance of any back seat drivers. For the money and despite the style, Fiat wasn't too stingy with the equipment. Driver and passenger air-bags, electric front windows and powered mirrors, front fog lamps, remote control central locking and power-steering. Though personally, I would have dumped the air-bags and chosen a sunroof.

It would have been easy for Fiat to pop in leather seats and a turned aluminium dashboard, or lashings of carbon and titanium bits, bobs and trinkets, stick on a prancing horse badge and charge 40+ grand for it. (It's been done before by Fiat-Ferrari and badge engineering is the current fad flushing across Europe). Instead, they left the Fiat logo on and ask around 20 to 23k new and for that we should be thankful and they should be praised.

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A truly great and future classic - divorce the wife and sell the house, live at your mum's and buy one of these - you know it makes sense.