Instrumented Test
Often with cars like the Volkswagen Beetle or Fiat 500, the curse of cuteness can be totally reversed by adding slick wheels, applying a few decals, and slamming the sucker. You don’t even have to touch the engine. Fleets of first-gen Scion xBs roll around Los Angeles in just such a fashion. They might make the same 108 hp as those transporting the legions of cheerleaders who also bought xBs, but slammed, they get props from car dudes.
We’d expect more than paint and tape and a slam from Road Race Motorsports. Based in the L.A. suburb of Santa Fe Springs, the company earned its credibility over the past few years making hard-core Lancer Evolution parts and, more recently, suspension and engine kits to perk up various Suzuki and Hyundai models. The company’s Fiat 500 Club Sportivo does look slick, even more so when you learn why the hood and the roof are matte black. Road Race owner Rob Tallini currently is restoring an old Lancia Fulvia into a tribute to the factory rally cars from the early ’70s and was inspired to finish this 500’s hood and roof in similar fashion.
Besides the graphics and the wheels and the slammed Bilstein suspension, the Club Sportivo—okay, that might be a slightly silly name for a car, but then so is Golf—wears some intake and exhaust mods developed by Road Race to make it a little breezier under throttle. The result is a pseudo ricer with an Italian flare, one that goes a little quicker and turns a bit sharper than the stock floater, with substantially less sway in the corners.
Building the (Little) Beast
A mid-grade Fiat 500 Sport (the base Pop is cheaper, the luxury Lounge more expensive) with optional automatic climate control leaves the showroom for $18,600. Under the hood, Road Race installed a cone-filter-capped, red-crackle-finish aluminum intake ($319), worth a dyno-tested 5 hp, and an "axle back" dual-tip sport exhaust ($599) that shrinks the silencer can for a sportier rip without touching most of the stock exhaust plumbing. In concert with the intake, the dyno shows about a 9-horse gain for the breathing enhancements. Road Race also fitted a $359 timing controller that advances spark timing and drew out another 6 or so hp.
Up about 15 hp on the stock Fiat 500’s 101, the Club Sportivo creeps somewhat closer to the base 121-hp Mini Cooper but is still not nearly as quick. A few runs through the quarter-mile with the Club Sportivo produced a best 0-to-60-mph time of 9.4 seconds, a hair fleeter than the stock Fiat 500 Sport (9.6 seconds) we recently compared against a base Mini (8.0 seconds) and significantly quicker than our newly arrived long-term Fiat 500 Sport (9.9 seconds). At 17.0 seconds through the quarter-mile at 81 mph, the Club Sportivo has between 0.3 and 0.5 second on its stock counterparts. The results may not be stunning, but neither is the price of the equipment, and the intake and the exhaust confer other benefits, both aesthetic and acoustic. The extra intake snarl, especially, enlivens the 1.4-liter MultiAir’s otherwise faint, kittenish growl.
Squat, Stiffen, and Stop
Road Race adhered to a strict budget underhood, but things get a little pricier in the suspension department. The more-rigid Bilstein coil-overs ($999) are paired with a Road Race rear anti-roll bar ($249) and camber-adjuster kit ($99). The car now sits about one inch lower than stock. Slotted Road Race brake rotors at all four corners ($378) are clamped by Road Race sport brake pads ($89). Stopping distances remained essentially unchanged at 175 feet.
Appearance mods include the 8.0-by-15-inch Stance Mindset wheels ($999) wearing 195/50-15 Falken Ziex ZE-912 all-season tires (about $99 apiece). The front lip spoiler ($300), the small wing extension on the hatch ($199), and the gold “Club Sportivo” stripe ($269) set this 500 apart without devolving into tastelessness. Road Race wouldn’t quote a price for the retro flat-black hood and roof, which is a vinyl wrap, but almost any wrap shop can do that job.
Bottom line: about $23,850, plus whatever you spend on black vinyl if you wish to pay tribute to Lancia’s glory days in rallying. Is it worth it? The Club Sportivo is certainly fun, ducking in and out of traffic with small-car agility enhanced by the lower center of gravity and stiffer suspension. Whereas the stock 500 squirms and leans over before it begins to turn, this car is more lashed down, responding more immediately and with less scrub to your wheel inputs. It may not be much more powerful than a stock 500, but it certainly sounds so, which gives you more confidence threading a path up a crowded boulevard or letting go of the merge lane and joining fast-moving expressway traffic.
Leaps and Conclusions
The downside is a head-bobbling ride from the Bilsteins, which are particularly prone to evil on such a short wheelbase. Hit an abrupt, ramp-like bridge joint on a freeway overpass, and the car leaps. Good thing there’s a lot of headroom, or you might sustain a concussion. Such trade-offs are accepted by slammers as the price of fashion.
The forthcoming Abarth will supply some of the cool cunning of the Club Sportivo, augmented by more red-meat horsepower. A Mini Cooper S would give you as much handling and more power for the price, but not everybody wants yet another Mini. And anyway, that’s tangential to the point of the Club Sportivo, which is to show everything in Road Race’s catalog for the Fiat 500 all on one vehicle. If you don’t need the full meal, order a few of the side dishes and you’ll be happy. As in Italy itself, there’s nothing bad on this menu.
