2009 Fiat 500 Abarth First Drive

The turbocharged engine of the 2009 Fiat 500 Abarth is sucking hard on the ever-cooler mountain air as we charge higher and higher into the French Alps, following this flowing ribbon of asphalt that leads us away from the Mediterranean coast and toward the clear blue sky above.

Ahead is the Col de Turini, the most famous mountain pass on the route of the Monte Carlo Rally. But our heart skips a beat, and not in a good way. A sign sits astride the road and it reads, Route Barrée. Road Closed.

Trust France to mess this up.

Fiat 500 With Attitude
Our drive from Fiat's headquarters in Turin went smoothly, an 80-mph blast across the Apennine Mountains and finally into France. First introduced for 2008, the new-generation Fiat 500 relives the Italian Miracle of the 1950s, when the original Fiat Cinquecento (500) put Italy on wheels. Some 3,702,078 of them were built between 1957 and 1975, and you still see them on the Italian road.

This new Fiat 500 is based on the bits of the front-engine, front-wheel-drive Fiat Panda and it looks like it'll fit into the palm of your hand. At just 139.6 inches in overall length, 64 inches in width and 58.6 inches in height, the new 500 is 6 inches shorter, 2.2 inches narrower and 3.2 inches higher than the Mini Cooper. It is also exceptionally light, less than 2,100 pounds.

But the 2009 Fiat 500 Abarth is a very special car in its own right, as its turbocharged and intercooled example of the Fiat 1.4-liter inline-4 delivers 135 horsepower. And just like the ripping rear-engine Cinquecento racing cars that Karl (Carlo) Abarth, the mad Austrian, created in his tiny tuning shop in Turin during the 1960s, the new Fiat 500 Abarth 500 is meant to be driven flat-out at every second.

There's not a bad angle on it. The bulging front bumper resembles that of the Cinquecento-based 695cc Abarths, although it conceals the turbocharger and twin intercoolers. The rooftop spoiler is nothing like one of the old Abarths, however, and there are extended rocker sills and an aero diffuser in the back besides. It's also amazing how good red stripes, red outside mirrors and red brake calipers can make a car look.

Fiat now considers Abarth a brand in its own right, and dealerships are springing up across Europe, a welcome return for the badge of the scorpion, meant to celebrate the sting in the tail of the old rear-engine Cinquecento-based cars. Fiat purchased Abarth outright in 1971 and it became the factory's race shop, and we've come here to the French Alps to celebrate the collaboration's most famous creation, the Fiat 131 Abarth that the famous Walter Röhrl drove to win the 1980 Monte Carlo rally by more than 10 minutes.

If only we could get onto the Col de Turini — the Monte Carlo Rally's most famous special stage — to celebrate.

Hello, Google
As we look for an alternate route, we enter "D2204" into Google Maps and discover a sinewy stretch of road that twists and turns up into the Maritime Alps and then descends again to the Cote d'Azur. It's called the Col de Braus.

Two lanes of blacktop cling to the steep slopes. The tall pines beside the road cast long shadows over the snaking tarmac, and in the gloom our pearlescent-white pocket rocket shoots upward through 2nd- and 3rd-gear corners, flowing with the camber of the sweeping road while meltwater from the snow-covered slopes streams downward toward us.

The Fiat 131 was rear-wheel drive, so Röhrl would have drifted his way up this sort of road, using the handbrake to swing the tail out for the hairpins, then standing on the gas to slide past each apex. Of course, the front-wheel-drive Fiat 500 Abarth requires a different technique. We dart out to the edge of the road on the way into the hairpins, and then cut back across the apexes, keeping our momentum up and hammering the throttle to get the turbo 1.4-liter to give us all of its 152 pound-feet of torque.

But we just can't find the right gear. Downshift to 1st and you'll be thrashing around near the redline, far above the torque peak. Try 2nd and you'll catch the turbo off boost and feel how slow a 1.4-liter engine can be without forced induction. The standard ttC (torque transfer control) system is no fun either, since it's just a kind of crude stability control, braking the front tires to maximize grip; it's more enjoyable to turn it off and spin an unloaded inside front tire. Finally we experiment with the handbrake, and the car pirouettes gloriously round the hairpins with a screech of rubber.

On to Monte Carlo
The light is starting to go, so we turn for Nice, having never made the Col de Turini. The 2009 Fiat 500 Abarth is now at its best. It didn't thrive on the tight turns, but it's great at seven-tenths effort once the road opens up. For mile after mile of downhill sweepers the brakes are strong and never fade, while the engine is on the boil when we need it, pulling harder and stronger than anything else in the baby hot-hatch class.

It's a pity that the steering and gearbox are the Abarth's weak points. The steering is meaty with input, giving you something to work against, but the heavy steering effort feels artificial and there's a complete lack of precision. The gearshift for the five-speed sits high, sprouting from the dash and betraying the Abarth's roots as a simple city car. We want to bang through the 'box with a flick of the wrist, but instead the shift action is loose and a little bit wobbly.

We fuel ourselves and the Abarth outside Nice, then head back along the coast with the late afternoon sun flooding into the cabin. We feel like a playboy, appropriate as we're heading for Monte Carlo, which promises quiet roads and the chance to catch a beautiful sunset.

Cities Are All the Same
So Monte Carlo is pandemonium. We arrive at a time when the city is at the mercy of both the rush hour and the school run. Yummy mummies in Porsche 911 Turbos jostle for position in the traffic with other yummy mummies, also driving 911 Turbos, and occasionally a Gemballa-tuned Porsche Cayenne joins the fray, driven by (you've guessed it) another yummy mummy.

The place is frankly kind of a mess. High-rise apartment buildings line every narrow street, Maserati-branded car dealerships sell Opels and the fashionably dressed police do little to ease the traffic queuing along the harborside road.

We escape the chaos to the square in front of the Casino, the world's most famous gambling den, and then drop down toward the Mediterranean on the route of the Formula 1 racing circuit and make a few passes on the Loews hairpin. Unfortunately the famous tunnel is closed, though we find another in which to lower the Abarth's windows, drop a few gears and plant the throttle. The result is disappointing; clearly the Fiat 500 Abarth has been tuned for civil conversation between its occupants. It's nothing like an Abarth 850 TC with the engine cover propped open.

Italian Street Racing
We retrace our steps toward Turin as the sun goes down. The darkness hides the crappy plastics that betray the cut-rate price of a base-model Fiat 500, but the splash of red paint across the dash lifts your spirits immeasurably. Black leather with contrasting red stitching covers the rim of the Abarth's steering wheel as well as the shift knob and handbrake. This car also has the optional leather-upholstered seats: black in the back but red for the retro-style front buckets. It's a great cabin, with more authentic character than the forced effects of the current Mini.

Turin is a nightmare, worse than Monte Carlo. While the Monégasques were happy to sit and wait in the traffic, every Italian is tearing around. And the place is packed, even past midnight. The city is no better in the morning and there's nothing to distract you from the mayhem.

Every cliché about driving in Italian cities is true. You sit and wait at the lights like you're in a race. There's no sequence of a red and then amber light like you usually get in European cities, just a sudden switch to green like America, so everyone's creeping forward, as if they're trying to roll the stage lights. When the green comes, you dash to the next set of lights, weaving from lane to lane and trying to get past that taxi in the shape of a Fiat Uno.

The Abarth is initially tardy away from the line as the turbo is caught off boost, so it's better to dump the clutch with 4,000 rpm on the tachometer and feel the tires spin briefly before the car blasts forward. You can nip through the smallest of gaps in the Fiat 500; it's built for Italy, built for the city. Rear visibility isn't great, though. In an ordinary Fiat 500, a button on the dash activates the light-effort city-mode steering, designed to make parking a doddle. With the Abarth, the same button switches on the Sport mode, which we've had engaged the whole trip. Once we disengage it, the torque output declines to 133 lb-ft from 152 lb-ft, the throttle barely responds and the steering wheel can be twirled with one finger. No, thank you.

The Italian Job
We try the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele I, the cobbled bridge that leads to the Gran Madre cathedral, where three Mini Coopers once bobbled down the steps on film while performing some sort of large-scale bank withdrawal in Italy. The Abarth rides well despite the stiffened and lowered suspension, though you'd be better off sticking with the stock 16-inch tires than the optional, harsh-riding 17s.

We move on to Corso Manche, home to Abarth's flagship store, but we can't park because there are cars everywhere, sometimes two or three deep. Finally we head to the Mirafiori district, the industrial area in the south of Turin that gave its name to the road-going version of the Fiat 131, and find our way to the Fiat industrial complex where Abarth HQ is now located. In two days we've spent 16 hours and 57 minutes in the Abarth, racking up 503 miles and giving us a true insight into the car's character.

The 2009 Fiat 500 Abarth doesn't have to be thrashed to be fun. You can just enjoy it while tooling around Turin, even if the traffic is worse than anything you ever imagined. If you want more, the Abarth obliges, yet you still don't have to scream to the engine's redline to get the most out of the car.

And there's an Italian charm to the Abarth that makes you forget about any faults.

Portions of this content have appeared in foreign print media and are reproduced with permission.