SA Road Tests

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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
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We discover a new favourite small hooligan car in the 2012 Fiat 500 Abarth

Exterior pics by author, interior by Quickpic

Fun-damentally different

“It’s got a nice little bark,” grinned Mike, Fiat and Alfa’s KZN fleet manager, on handing us the key to the 500 Abarth. So it has, but apart from the more musical exhaust system, there is the 99 kW (up from 74) version of Fiat’s 1368 cc T-Jet engine, intercooler vents in front, spoilers, special wheels with scorpion caps, suspension modifications, bigger front brakes, red calipers, special rear bumper, extractor, twin exhaust tubes, sports seats and gauges. And don’t forget those iconic badges.

Karl, or Carlo Abarth, when he moved from Austria to Italy after the War, was a master tuner; of first his racing motorcycles, then later of various makes of car. Models on which he worked magic included rear-engined Fiats, Porsches, Ferraris, Alfa Romeos and many others. Oscar Rivoli, CEO of Fiat Group Automobiles South Africa, summed it up this way: “Any Abarth was so fundamentally different from its base components that it became a car in its own right.” The mystique and ethos lives on, with his company now an integral part of the Fiat and Ferrari empire.

He also developed and sold millions of bolt-on exhaust systems to enthusiasts, looking for more power from their standard cars, in the ‘fifties and ‘sixties. All bore his distinctive trademark of a red and yellow shield featuring a scorpion. Urban legend had it that the scorpion signified the ‘sting in the tail’ he applied to baby Fiats. Truth is, it was simply his birth sign.

The new seats, instruments and chunky steering wheel transform the standard 500’s slightly retro interior into a workshop designed for the serious business of driving. Deeper bolsters on the seats hold you more firmly in place, a boost gauge on top of the dash tells how hard you are making the turbocharger work, the numerals on the concentric speedo and tachometer look harder and more business-like, while big aluminium pedals and chunky leather-bound steering wheel communicate an air of urgency.

On the move, firm suspension, quick steering and that ‘nice little bark’ mentioned earlier state openly that this 500 is more than simply the sum of its parts – it’s a mean little scorpion designed to deliver a stinging message. Then click on the ‘sport’ button so that engine and steering responses sharpen up, and feel your grin expand. But, as the commercials go, there’s more.

An innocent little button marked ‘TTC’ switches in Torque Transfer Control that mimics a limited slip differential by using the ESP sensors and braking system to transfer engine torque away from the unloaded inner wheel to the loaded outer wheel. This reins in understeer around corners, making the car even more fun to drive. We have always been pushovers for darkly mysterious Scorpio women. This one is no exception.

The five-speed manual box shifts quickly and positively and ratios are well spaced. Being turbocharged, the engine pulls willingly from low revs and sings right up to and beyond the 6000-rpm redline. Although it pulls only 3000 rpm at 120 in top, We did feel occasionally that a sixth gear would be useful. Another small ‘if’ is that the side bolstering has made the seats a touch too narrow. Note to Fiat: Could you make them wider please? By the way, a spare wheel would be nice too, because a pump alone doesn’t make us feel secure.

While this standard Abarth is a hoot to drive, the more jaded among us could choose an Esseesse (pronounced ‘SS’) kit that beefs up brakes and suspension, adds special wheels and boosts engine power to 118 kW. Priced at R37 000 fitted, this takes half a second off the zero-to-100 km/h time while increasing maximum speed by 6 km/h. Figures for the slightly heavier 500C cabriolet are a touch slower. Those with really deep pockets and need for speed can opt for the rather special R550 000 Abarth 695 Tributo Ferrari version that develops 132 kW and sprints to 100 in less than seven seconds. We lust, but have to fold.

At present, only Arnold Chatz Motors in Johannesburg sells Abarth cars and the Esseesse kits. More authorized Abarth outlets are in the pipeline for KZN and the Western Cape, though.

Update: Dealerships now open in Pretoria, Cape Town and Umhlanga

The numbers
Price: R230 000 for the standard car or R255 000 for the cabriolet
Engine: 1368 cc, 16-valve, four-cylinder, with IHI RHF3-P turbocharger
Power: 99 kW at 5500 rpm
Torque: 206 Nm at 3000 rpm in Sport mode or 180 Nm at 2500 rpm normally
Zero to 100 km/h: 7,9 seconds
Maximum speed: 205 km/h
Real life average fuel consumption: about 7,2 l/100 km
Tank: 35 litres
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km
Service plan: 5 years/90 000 km

To see our report on the cabriolet version, click here

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so I do actually exist.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

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