2016 Fiat 500X ( 2016 fiat 500 )

  2016 fiat 500

 First drive evaluation

Fiat is eventually bringing a actual adult vehicle to the U.S. Market. The 500X invitations mature drivers to slip into something extra comfortable than the tiny two-door Cinquecento—the toylike town automobile that relaunched the emblem in the united states in 2010—and gives a using experience far extra attractive than the dowdy 500L ever imagined. The X is so much nicer than the L, in truth, that we’d recommend the latter’s days should be numbered, its most effective benefit being a little bit greater indoors room.  Up to now, Fiat’s return to the yankee market has observed the trail blazed through Mini. Start with a small automobile supplying plenty of personalization options, then expand the product lineup even as hewing to a unmarried layout theme. Next year sometime, the Italians are going to break off in a new direction with the 124 Spider evolved along the Mazda Miata, however for now each Fiat in this us of a is still a 500. The X will be the nice yet—it genuinely broadens the logo’s attraction to American drivers who need more than minimalist transportation.

The 500X sincerely seems accurate whilst the layout cues hew to the pretense that this is simply some other variation at the authentic. It’s no longer. Constructed on a new international platform (the equal one that underpins the Jeep Renegade), the 500X was drawn by designers who got their sums proper and—for the primary time because the brand’s revival here—had the North American market in mind from the get-move. The stance and proportions we well-liked at automobile suggests holds up and appears even better out within the real international of visitors. Each out of doors and in, it appears to be constructed to a higher wellknown and of nicer materials than the 500L, if the preproduction models we simply drove in and around l.  A. Are indicative of the motors that must arrive in U.S. Dealerships in may additionally.  The chassis is shared with the Renegade and the drivetrains are acquainted FCA hardware, leaving best the tweaking, tuning, and equipping to differentiate the 500X. The bottom version uses the acquainted Pop trim designation and is powered by using the 160-hp 1.4-liter Multiair faster 4 that serves within the Fiat 500 Abarth, mated to a popular six-pace guide gearbox. The Pop is the only 500X offering a take hold of pedal, and it has no options past your preference of colors; the nine-speed automatic and 2.Four-liter 4-cylinder that come widespread on all different trim tiers also are optional on the Pop. Like VW with its golf SportWagen, Fiat equates self-shifting with a hair-shirt method to motoring—in case you need to row your own, you obviously wouldn’t want, say, a larger contact display or a heated guidance wheel. The entrepreneurs say the take fee on manuals is only 1 to a few percentage, however that’s a self-pleasurable 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 a good way to pretty successfully kill income of the stick shift. We desire Fiat had reflected Mini’s route in this instance; the Countryman can be had with a guide even when optioned to the max.

Regardless, the large majority (95 percentage, through FCA estimates) of Fiat 500X models could be in one of the 4 different trim tiers: smooth, trekking, front room, and trekking Plus. Five trim ranges feels like lots, but most of the differences boil all the way down to cosmetics. All however the Pop use the a hundred and eighty-hp 2.Four-liter Tigershark 4-cylinder that makes greater power but less torque than the smaller 1.Four-liter rapid. Fiat estimates that approximately forty percent of buyers will choose the non-obligatory ($1900) all-wheel-power machine with rear-axle disconnect. It’s similar to is used in the Renegade, but Fiat gained’t get the more succesful four-by-4 device that Jeep gives in its Trailhawk version. So the two hiking iterations have outside and internal layout cues intended to evoke off-road worthiness, however it’s all just window-dressing, as a minimum in our marketplace (the 500X could be bought in some one hundred nations). The clean and living room versions bear a more in-depth resemblance to the little Cinquecento with a similar the front fascia. Inside, all the 500X models look, feel, and work better than previous U.S. Fiats.