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| Fiat
Stilo Abarth and Fiat Abarth 600 |
Broadcast
dates : 16th January 2005
20th January 2005 |
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The tiny Abarth badge on the
rear hatch-lid of the Fiat Stilo speaks volumes to enthusiasts
who have a passion for motorsport from the 1980s way back to
the 1960s. Carlo Abarth used the Scorpion motif as it was also
the symbol of his birth sign.
To thousands of competitors who had the misfortune to take on
his tiny Fiat six-hundred-based creations, it also meant being
stung rather painfully.
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Bruce Meyers’ Fiat Abarth
started life as a little six-hundred cc car that was a common
sight on our roads in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Despite
being tiny, it can carry five people in relative comfort and
is a masterpiece of ergonomic design.
The Abarth bits and pieces take it into a different dimension
and these include a raised engine lid to promote cooling, a
special engine measuring nine-hundred-and-fifty cc with wild
camshaft, competition exhaust and a massive snorting Weber
carburetor.
Bruce has restored the car to his own road-race
specifications. Purists take him to task on the subject, but
his reply is that he has stuck to the original essence of the
Abarth.
The wheels too are Cromodora look-alikes rather than
Campagnola originals, but the overall effect is unmistakably
Abarth.
With the mechanicals sorted out, Bruce turned his attention to
the interior.
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The modern Abarth is a different
kettle of fish entirely.
Fiat takes pride in pointing out that this is the first
five-cylinder car in the large-hatch segment.
The mix is somewhat strange, simply because it’s so
different from what one would expect from anything with an
Abarth badge. This Stilo Abarth is all about effortless
torque, long, lazy gear ratios, low noise levels and surging
rather than ripping performance.
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Yet the engine does rev very
smoothly to the redline in typical Fiat fashion.
It’s kind of re-assuring in terms of potential longevity of
the engine and it makes the car extremely pleasant to drive in
any conditions.
The numbers are a hundred-and-twenty-five kilowatts at
six-thousand revs, and two-hundred-and-twenty-one Newton
metres of torque at three-thousand-five-hundred rpm.
Performance claims, too, are fairly modest for a car that
looks this good. A mid-eight second zero-to-one-hundred and a
two-hundred-and-fifteen kilometres-per-hour top speed are not
about to start any bar-room arguments in the fast and furious
department.
The exterior looks
are very pleasing, with a stubby nose, very crisp side profile
and imaginative interplay between styling accents and tail
lights at the rear.
And typically Italian, the wheel design is a masterpiece
combining good taste with flair.
The interior is rather ordinary with some of the plastics used
exhibiting a rather low quality look.
But the seats are pleasing in terms of their cloth upholstery
texture and lift the look of the interior to the sporty level.
Overall the Fiat Stilo Abarth is a very satisfying car to
drive, with suspension firm rather than stiff. It does have
traction control and ABS, but not corner stability controls.
At just three-hundred Rand short of the
two-hundred-thousand-Rand mark, it offers a lot of car for the
money, despite the fact it only has three doors.
Definitely worth checking out if you’re in the market for a
hot hatch.
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