Fiat Stilo Abarth | Spotted
A five-cylinder hot hatch usually means a fast Ford - but don't forget the old Fiat
The joy of a Fiat hot hatch is that you never quite know what you’re going to get. The Strada Abarth persisted with carbs back in the day when GTIs were all the rage, then the Tipo Sedicivalvole went completely the other way with 2.0-litres, fuel injection and 16 valves. A Punto HGT was fairly tame; a GT Turbo was certainly not. A Panda 100HP was cheap, simple, back-to-basics hot hatch goodness; it didn’t take long for the Abarth 500 to become an expensive turbo trinket.
They’re always memorable, at least. Even the latest batch of Abarth EVs, if not the best small electric cars in the world, are certainly performance cars with a personality. For this fast Fiat, the entire appeal was under the bonnet as, post-Coupe and pre-500, Fiat sort of forgot how to design cars with any stylistic appeal. The Multipla got its boring facelift, the Idea was a bad one, the Punto had a bland update and the less said about the Ulysse, the better. The first Panda was about as good as mid-'00s Fiat got.
The Stilo was especially dull, if slightly improved as a three-door; at least then it resembled a traditional hatch rather than a balloon on wheels. Its point of difference was undoubtedly provided by a 2.4-litre, five-cylinder engine under the bonnet. Before the Focus ST took the Volvo five, Fiat pioneered the idea of a hot hatch with more than 2.0 litres and four cylinders. We say 'hot' - without a turbocharger or any kind of special features for the engine at all, the five-pot lump could only muster 170hp. Even in the early '00s, that wasn’t especially competitive, and efficiency wasn’t much to write home about either, the official scores no better than 30mpg and 231g/km. So that VED won’t be cheap.
Precious few 2.4-litre Stilos sold in period. It wasn’t that fast, it wasn’t that great to drive and it didn’t look all that sexy. Shocker. Plus it was saddled with a Selespeed gearbox for the first three years of its life. We’d draw the line at sharing one of those with you, honest. This is a 2004 manual Stilo 2.4, showing just 73,000 miles and cared for by just three owners in its 21 years.
As these things go, it looks bloody great, still no stunner but a nice reminder of when hatchbacks could just be hatchbacks, when new cars could have a glasshouse, and when wheels didn’t have to be a minimum of 20-inch diameter. Apparently it’s been garaged for a good chunk of its life, so the paint looks really good and there’s no mention of rust in the MOTs. The interior is still pretty staid, if at least still all there. While there aren’t any underbonnet images, it would be amazing to find any different there.
It must be one of the best surviving Stilos, and there really aren’t many to speak of now. It deserves saving, for the TLC that's been lavished on it as well as the curiosity value. Howmanyleft suggests that the number of 2.4s remaining on the road is less than 20 per cent of the 2016 figure; it’s less than 10 per cent of the number taxed in 2012. Five-cylinder manual cars of any stripe deserve a better fate than extinction, and this one doesn’t look far off show winner for those interested. It’s not going to be competing against many other Stilos, at least…
SPECIFICATION | FIAT STILO ABARTH
Engine: 2,446cc, five-cylinder
Transmission: 5-speed manual, front-wheel drive
Power (hp): 170@6,000rpm
Torque (lb ft): 163@3,500rpm
MPG: 29.1
CO2: 231g/km
Recorded mileage: 72,817
First registered: 2004
Price new: £14,245
Yours for: £9,975
I genuinely thought I was clicking on a new Shed of the Week article.
£10k for that? You're having a laugh.
Even at Shed money it's a hard sell, as the article itself said, it's thirsty, ugly, slow and not fun to drive.
Who could this possibly appeal to at that money?
But £9975? That must be a misprint. Even if the car is 100% mint inside and out it can't be worth more than £3000. And even then the list of people who would actually buy it must be a short one.
I drove one when they were actually worth £5k, which would have been about 2009ish, and it was nice but not that fast even in it's say. Didn't really matter as it sounded great.
Now that they are worth about £1500 (adjusted for inflation) I would be happy to have one as a runabout. Sadly, the seller appears to have forgotten how numbers work....
Still, the Fiat is a mildly interesting car, though you'd have to really want one to pay that much for it. I actually thought it looks pretty decent in three-door Abarth guise, and certainly no worse than a lot of other stuff out there. In terms of speed, while it's not a rocket ship, when it was launched in 2001, the Golf GTI was still pretty bland, and Ford were just about to release the ST170 version of the Focus with a very similar amount of power. It's perhaps a case of slightly unfortunate timing as, not long after the Abarth came along, we started to see more powerful hot hatches becoming common.
Regardless, an interesting curio.
Made a decent sound. Had a great spec, leather, sav nav, cooled glove box. I got it merely because most mates had golf GTI's or similar.
Had the selespeed box too. Not as bad as folk make out.
Viewed 20 odd years later, it no doubt feels chronically bad, but in period, it was OK. It was new technology, but someone has to be the first. This, Alfa and Ferrari were about the only options at the time and I wasn't in the market for a 355.
At 10 grand, you'd have to be fuelled by pure nostalgia or mental health issues that should ideally preclude you from driving.
Part exed mine for a Chimaera.
The Stilo was probably the last non-small FIAT that sold in any great numbers but it was a very cheaply made car, and not exactly held in great esteem by the general public.
https://www.iconicauctioneers.com/2005-fiat-stilo-...
Then again, I saw a more recent Golf sized Fiat a couple of weeks ago, can't remember what it was called or what it looked like. It was the epitome of bland, despite being red.
I've just looked it up. The Tipo, apparently they are still trying to sell them. In fairness looking at the pictures it's not ugly, just very forgettable.
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