Fiat puts F back in fun with its cute as a puppy 500

four-adults-inside, run-on-fumes character as the original.

It was still cheeky, but well built and well equipped, in keeping with the demands of 21st century motorists. It gave you the sense that you were easing through the Tuscan vineyards, rather than the traffic of faux-Tuscan Fourways.

But, the latest iteration of the car gets even closer to the original by bringing in the only two-cylinder on our market at the moment. Yet, it is worlds away from the one in the first 500. This time, it is 900c in capacity but is given its woema by a turbocharger. In different states of boost, the motor produces either 65kW or 77kW.

That doesn’t sound like much, but the turbo helps reduce the impact of the thin air at Highveld altitudes and it is decently fleet, considering the segment.

It promises excellent economy, although we got nowhere near the 3.8 litres per 100km which Fiat claims. However, we were able to do better than 6l/100km in the city, which is something we have never achieved with a diesel…

This car is about economy, clever engineering and good quality (don’t be so surprised, Fiats these days are well built and reliable)… but it is also about something else. It’s about fun – even if the awful automated manual gearbox does its damndest to spoil things with changes which can charitably be described as sluggish – and fun means it makes you smile.

You smile because you can chuck it into a corner with zero body roll; you can almost touch each extremity when parking and you feel… well, just younger when you’re behind the wheel.

People smile at you. Our yellowcoloured bubble drew more looks than fancy fast cars we’ve had over the years. It’s like a cute puppy… what’s not to love?

And that, in itself, may be a reason to buy it: it is an antidote to toxic road rage.