The little Fiat 500 is a cute town car that is driven to Waitrose and for lunchtime appointments in city and countryside. Its affordability and cute styling has found it many friends. But it also has a sporty undertone, an aggressive side that just wants to get out there and go fast. So Fiat gives us the Abarth 500 hot hatch.
And since the Daddy of grabbing a Fiat and making it fast are the in-house experts at Abarth, getting them to take their knowledge, build 20-ish similar cars and make them race against each other seems like a recipe for success. Across Europe it already has been and they have now launched a one-make series for the UK - The Trofeo Abarth 500 GB.
At a very cold, wet and windy Race Car Live, held for the second year at Brands Hatch, I managed to get hold of one of the latest batch of race cars from Abarth.
For a small car you would expect the insides to be quite cramped and, though the seat is quite raised and your head feels close to the roll cage, there's legroom and width in there to comfortably take a much larger frame than mine. There is even an adjustable steering column, which is most useful for moving the steering wheel so you can actually see the rev-counter.
Each car comes off the assembly line after the shell has been finished, then Abarth breathes its magic on them by bringing in the Italian scaffolding company for the roll cage and adding custom suspension, gearbox, engine and other components all loosely based on the road-going 500 Abarth. Except with 190bhp instead of 133bhp.
As I accelerate out of the pit straight it's time to see what Abarth has done to the 500. Instantly you realise this isn't the same as the shopping version; the suspension is much sharper and firmer and powering through paddock hill bend you can feel the front diff is working well to handle the amazing amount of torque they have produced from the engine - 221lb/ft. Over the next few corners of the Indy circuit I discover that the steering is very light despite it being obvious that the wheels turning in properly. Clearly this car's steering feedback is something that you need to get dialled into.
For a light car - 970kg - you would expect it to be very nimble and it certainly is a lively thing. Under braking you get a good feel through the pedal, which is sometimes lost on race cars, but at the same time you have a rear end that fancies overtaking you more than helping turn-in. This is obviously something that can be dialled out of the car, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a few swapped ends in the first couple of races.
The gearbox is almost standard, with an H-pattern shift and a pretty basic clutch. In a race car it feels strange to have such a woolly set-up for gear changes. In the heat of battle it might be too easy to snag the wrong gear and buzz the little 1.4-litre engine. Up through the gears the turbo whines pleasingly and, as you come off the power, the blow-off valve breathes heavily in a satisfying way. The power band is quite short, with the turbo coming on strong from 3200rpm but topping off approaching 6000rpm. With the low seat and hidden rev counter, this does mean the first few gear changes come at a lower engine speed than you would think and thus the rev limiter can cut in unexpectedly.
It is clear as I pilot the Trofeo Abarth 500 round the track that this is a quick and capable machine and one of the fastest things in the session against other hot hatch metal. Also, with the amount of interest at the show when the cars are parked up, it clearly is a car that is popular among the British public. It is a championship that could give the more established one-make series of Clio and Mini a serious run for their money.