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the spacing to turn it into W 500X. I know that in theory it’s illegal but police turn a blind eye to middle lane morons who clog up motorways, people who park anywhere they want and, of course, weird registration plates. So, even if they had been cruel enough to pick on Fiat, I’m sure they would have got off with a warning.

Hey ho, I really loved that not quite so little car. But then I discovered that, like so many Press motors, a few extras had been added.

Fiat hadn’t gone mad, in the same way that Audi recently managed to turn my £53,045 A6 Avant into a £73,325 palace on wheels, but I was a bit fed-up to discover that a lot of the things I was going to praise – such as the car’s brilliant rear parking system and safety camera, the door mirror that folded inwards when you locked the car, the TomTom satnav, a full-size spare wheel, its heated leather seats and even its dazzling blue paint job – were all part of Fiat’s

£3,105 worth of extras that took its final price to £22,100.

One thing that wasn’t an extra was the 500X’s engine. It’s a tiny 999cc three cylinder turbo that pumps out

120hp, more than enough to give this

1,320kg car enough power to shock. It cruises at 70mph in sixth at

2,900rpm and that’s impressive. Better than that is the car’s performance on its way to a top speed of 117mph. A 0-62mph time of 10.9s may sound positively slow but it is anything but, especially at high speed, where it’ll easily keep up with the big boys.

It’s quite startling just how much power there is.

If that’s not good enough, then add the 500X’s all-round silence and feeling of being properly stuck together.

Its silence, even at high speeds, is amazing. So much so that everyone who travelled in it was stunned by the fact that such a small car could deliver a sense of it feeling, if not looking, like a far bigger and posher motor.

On the outside, the new 500X has barely changed from the original 2015