First Drive Review
Fiat is finally bringing a real adult car to the U.S. market. The 500X invites mature drivers to slip into something more comfortable than the tiny two-door Cinquecento—the toylike city car that relaunched the brand in America in 2010—and offers a driving experience far more engaging than the dowdy 500L ever imagined. The X is so much nicer than the L, in fact, that we’d suggest the latter’s days should be numbered, its only advantage being a little bit more interior room.
So far, Fiat’s return to the American market has followed the trail blazed by Mini. Start with a small car offering lots of personalization options, then expand the product lineup while hewing to a single design theme. Next year sometime, the Italians are going to break off in a new direction with the 124 Spider developed alongside the Mazda Miata, but for now every Fiat in this country is still a 500. The X could be the best yet—it certainly broadens the brand’s appeal to American drivers who need more than minimalist transportation.
The 500X actually looks good even as the design cues hew to the pretense that this is just another variation on the original. It’s not. Built on a new global platform (the same one that underpins the Jeep Renegade), the 500X was drawn by designers who got their sums right and—for the first time since the brand’s revival here—had the North American market in mind from the get-go. The stance and proportions we admired at auto shows holds up and looks even better out in the real world of traffic. Both outside and in, it looks to be built to a higher standard and of nicer materials than the 500L, if the preproduction models we just drove in and around Los Angeles are indicative of the cars that should arrive in U.S. dealerships in May.
The chassis is shared with the Renegade and the drivetrains are familiar FCA hardware, leaving only the tweaking, tuning, and equipping to distinguish the 500X. The base model uses the familiar Pop trim designation and is powered by the 160-hp 1.4-liter Multiair turbo four that serves in the Fiat 500 Abarth, mated to a standard six-speed manual gearbox. The Pop is the only 500X offering a clutch pedal, and it has no options beyond your choice of colors; the nine-speed automatic and 2.4-liter four-cylinder that come standard on all other trim levels are also optional on the Pop. Like VW with its Golf SportWagen, Fiat equates self-shifting with a hair-shirt approach to motoring—if you want to row your own, you obviously wouldn’t want, say, a bigger touch screen or a heated steering wheel. The marketers say the take rate on manuals is only 1 to 3 percent, but that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy with packaging like this. If you can’t get navigation or heated seats or a backup camera or upgraded audio with a stick shift that will pretty effectively kill sales of the stick shift. We wish Fiat had mirrored Mini’s path in this instance; the Countryman can be had with a manual even when optioned to the max.
Regardless, the vast majority (95 percent, by FCA estimates) of Fiat 500X models will be in one of the four other trim levels: Easy, Trekking, Lounge, and Trekking Plus. Five trim levels sounds like a lot, but most of the differences boil down to cosmetics. All but the Pop use the 180-hp 2.4-liter Tigershark four-cylinder that makes more power but less torque than the smaller 1.4-liter turbo. Fiat estimates that about 40 percent of buyers will choose the optional ($1900) all-wheel-drive system with rear-axle disconnect. It’s the same as is used in the Renegade, but Fiat won’t get the more capable four-by-four equipment that Jeep offers in its Trailhawk version. So the two Trekking iterations have external and internal design cues meant to evoke off-road worthiness, but it’s all just window-dressing, at least in our market (the 500X will be sold in some 100 countries). The Easy and Lounge versions bear a closer resemblance to the little Cinquecento with a similar front fascia. Inside, all the 500X models look, feel, and work better than previous U.S. Fiats.
