Abarth offers custom bling
News just in from Italy! Shame it's almost completely unintelligible...
Oh wait; here it is. Abarth is making a bit of noise about its ‘fuoriserie’ customisation programme. This was first shown off at the Paris motor show late last year by unveiling a rather sudden (not to mention decidedly dubious) 695, tarted up with all manner of options available through the programme. Note, for example, the bonnet treatment – why choose between a NACA duct or a vent when you can have both?
To complement the programme, and hot on the heels of previous 695 models like the Maserati and Ferrari editions, Abarth has opted to release four ‘pre-modified’ 695 packages that are ... well, as they put it, “like tattoos on your skin, indelible and personal, unique feelings, accessories inspired by the Abarth brand, with an eye for innovation, technology and the latest trends.” Er... if you say so, chaps.
Two of the packages, Record and Scorpione, hark back to previous Abarth liveries, while the other two – Hype and Black Diamond – are more style-oriented. Some, as you can tell from our pictures, are rather more convincing than others. All, however, are endowed with the 695’s 180hp 1.4-litre MultiAir turbo and robotised manual gearbox, as well as 305mm Brembo four-piston brakes and Koni FSD dampers. Inside, meanwhile, and depending on the package you choose, you can have a selection of tasty goodies such as Sabelt seats, splashes of carbon fibre, and even scorpion badges sprayed liberally around the place.
So beneath the rather over-the-top tat and marketing waffle, these new Abarths should be reasonably enjoyable things to drive. Assuming that gearbox doesn’t spoil things too much. Here’s hoping; after all, it’d be a shame if the Abarth name was diminished to peddle a set of spangly add-ons.
Unfortunately I can't see these being much cheaper than the ferrari and maserati equivelants, plus, the weakest part of the 500 is that manual gear box.
Still it looks like the level of customisation that is available for the Abarth 500 is unrivalled by other manufacturers, provided of course you can pay for it.
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Because of course Fiat would *never* do that to Abarth.... honest
TBH though with a little restraint you have a nice unique design that is not a million miles from the sort of customisation we had from the likes of TVR. Was that a bad thing? (in some cases it could be argued but most of the time it all worked out)
The problem is going to be how much they expect the in-cognicenti to pay for such things - £1000 a seat? no problem sir...
The 695 is already price hiked as far as the market can bear from what I've seen so this could just be a futile attempt at extracting a little more.
Still don't get why the auto-gearbox is standard, with exception everyone I've spoken to that has tried it came to the same conclusion - it's crap and completely spoils the car. The tributo cars were supposed to be better but feedback says otherwise - it really is about time Fiat got their act together on this front, everything else on the A500s is so much better than they've done in the past, why can't they get that one last detail right?
I think they might have been better-off sorting out some of the quality issues which have caused a few people to throw theirs back and buy something else entirely...
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