My Abarth 595C Turismo Experience
Discussion
I've bought something that is probably about as "un-PH" as you can get, could I be further from the mark?
Criteria was: small, easy to drive, not much to worry about, fun around London as a city car, appeals to both myself and my girlfriend, not too drastic depreciation, cheap to insure and a bit of fun to own, conclusion: Abarth 595.
I tried a Competizione but decided I could deal with the hardcore seats all the time as much as I'd like the Monza exhaust system. I had no real preference between Hatchback and Convertible but did want the MTA gearbox as the car lives in London so a manual is not very much fun, and it's a 2nd car so for ease of use.
Started looking, found a car that seemed good, got £4,500 off list price for a nearly new car so put down a deposit on Wednesday and picked it up on Friday! Let me get this right, the full name is: Fiat 500 Abarth 595C Turismo Convertible, I've only had time to drive 25 or so miles on it but I already feel like this is going to be a whole lot of fun! If it sticks that way and I don't put quite so many miles on the R8 this is a very good thing (currently running at 14,500 in just the last 7 months...).
A couple of stills grabbed out of a video I did:
I had never realised that the two-tone 500s are just done with a wrap. I have my other car wrapped so I like the idea but I'd have thought when a grey car is a free colour and the two-tone grey is £950 that you'd get a little more for your money than a tiny bit of vinyl and a stripe of tape... I like the colours I have but I am wondering what it's like underneath, as in because the factory new it was being wrapped does that mean that the paint isn't properly finished underneath or is it a completely red car beneath?
Now it's time to start to think about what to modify on it... exhaust, remap, wheels, who knows! I'll post up a few things as they get done, hopefully it will be of interest to somebody out there.
Criteria was: small, easy to drive, not much to worry about, fun around London as a city car, appeals to both myself and my girlfriend, not too drastic depreciation, cheap to insure and a bit of fun to own, conclusion: Abarth 595.
I tried a Competizione but decided I could deal with the hardcore seats all the time as much as I'd like the Monza exhaust system. I had no real preference between Hatchback and Convertible but did want the MTA gearbox as the car lives in London so a manual is not very much fun, and it's a 2nd car so for ease of use.
Started looking, found a car that seemed good, got £4,500 off list price for a nearly new car so put down a deposit on Wednesday and picked it up on Friday! Let me get this right, the full name is: Fiat 500 Abarth 595C Turismo Convertible, I've only had time to drive 25 or so miles on it but I already feel like this is going to be a whole lot of fun! If it sticks that way and I don't put quite so many miles on the R8 this is a very good thing (currently running at 14,500 in just the last 7 months...).
A couple of stills grabbed out of a video I did:
I had never realised that the two-tone 500s are just done with a wrap. I have my other car wrapped so I like the idea but I'd have thought when a grey car is a free colour and the two-tone grey is £950 that you'd get a little more for your money than a tiny bit of vinyl and a stripe of tape... I like the colours I have but I am wondering what it's like underneath, as in because the factory new it was being wrapped does that mean that the paint isn't properly finished underneath or is it a completely red car beneath?
Now it's time to start to think about what to modify on it... exhaust, remap, wheels, who knows! I'll post up a few things as they get done, hopefully it will be of interest to somebody out there.
Mutts said:
What's the MTA gearbox like?
So far I'm really enjoying it, Auto mode seems decent enough but driving on the paddles is a whole lot of fun - it feels very like a computer game.It's the same type of gearbox that my R8 has and that my Aston had too so I've got very used to them and really like it, best of both worlds!
You're not going to believe this, I've owned the car for less than 48 hours and come out to the car to find some delightful member of the public has done this and driven off without leaving a note:
As far as I can tell the damage consists of the scratching to the paint of the bumper which may clean off with some chemical stuff, but the plastic itself is also slightly dented, is there something I can do about that?
The diffuser needs replacing though, it's cracked in a few places and scraped where the impact must have been. I'm hoping this can be bought as its own part somehow that I can then install without having to go through a dealer?
Does anybody know roughly what I'm looking at if I just buy a new bumper and diffuser?
At any time it's upsetting when some tool does this and has the rudeness to just drive off, but when you're car is 2 days old it's far more distressing! The sad news is this has to come straight out of the modification budget, what a giant waste of money.
Any other ideas?
As far as I can tell the damage consists of the scratching to the paint of the bumper which may clean off with some chemical stuff, but the plastic itself is also slightly dented, is there something I can do about that?
The diffuser needs replacing though, it's cracked in a few places and scraped where the impact must have been. I'm hoping this can be bought as its own part somehow that I can then install without having to go through a dealer?
Does anybody know roughly what I'm looking at if I just buy a new bumper and diffuser?
At any time it's upsetting when some tool does this and has the rudeness to just drive off, but when you're car is 2 days old it's far more distressing! The sad news is this has to come straight out of the modification budget, what a giant waste of money.
Any other ideas?
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