Series: Wheels

Car review: Fiat 500 TwinAir

Its retro styling and designer looks have made it a metrosexual favourite. And now the Fiat 500's not just a pretty face
Fiat 500
Italian lessons: the Fiat 500’s revolutionary TwinAir power unit is the cleanest petrol engine in the world. Photograph: Observer

Price £10,865
MPG 68.9
Top speed 108mph

The Huff is a big man. A stiff-necked former rugby player turned biker, he's 6ft 3in and must weigh as much as a horse – he certainly eats like one. His elderly father has been battling valiantly against illness for some time, but last week the old fellow's slow slide towards darkness seemed to gather pace. The Huff's laughably butch motorbike was off the road, so he called me to ask a favour. Could I lend him a car for his mercy dash to Corby? "Of course," I said. "But I have to warn you it's a sky-blue Fiat 500…" There was silence on the line. "It won Gay Car of the Year in 2010," I added. More silence, and then: "OK, but if the sight of it kills Dad it's your fault." The good folk at Fiat obliged and put the Huff on the paperwork and he, a dutiful son for 48 years, squeezed his big frame into the small car and headed to the Midlands for what he hoped wouldn't be the last time.

By Monday, his father had eased out of his nose dive and a relieved Huff dropped the car back to me. "Nice little car," he pronounced. "But Fiats haven't changed much. It still stalled every time I stopped."

In fact, Fiats have changed out of all recognition. What the 500 was doing was automatically switching off its engine whenever it was idling. It's just one of a raft of technical innovations that have made the new 500 TwinAir the petrol engine with the lowest emissions in the world. To put that in context, consider that at the other end of the scale, Fiat's fellow Italian, a Ferrari 599 (the Huff's dream car), produces five times as much. It's the equivalent of comparing a baby's breath to the rank exhalation of a post-bender Gérard Depardieu. Fiat's sweet-smelling exhaust is backed up with extraordinary consumption figures, too: 57.6 miles to a gallon of petrol in the city. You'll also pay no road tax, and it's exempt from London's congestion charge. So, cheap and chic.

The 500 follows in the steps of trendsetting cars such as Citroën's C1 and the Toyota Aygo, which prove that small, lightweight cars with incredibly efficient engines can be cleaner even than electric cars. A recent study estimated that an electric car would have to be driven 80,000 miles to produce a net saving in CO2 once the large amount of energy used for manufacture – and in particular the creation of the batteries – has been taken into account. Considering that most electric cars will only ever be used for short urban journeys, 80,000 miles is an improbably high mileage.

The original 500 has been around for decades, and its tiny seats, beady headlights and bunch-backed roof are as quintessentially Italian as an Azzurri footballer diving in the box. When the 500 reached its 50th anniversary in 2007 it was relaunched and since then has been winning fans across Europe with its pastel colours, retro styling and modern technology.

This revolutionary TwinAir engine, however, takes the car to a new level, adding brains to its beauty. Some critics are even hailing the 875cc twin-cylinder turbocharged unit as one of the greatest leaps forward in engine technology in the past 20 years. To drive, it's full of character, ducking and diving happily through city traffic and holding its own in the jet stream of the middle lane. The two-cylinder engine does make an odd whirring noise that takes a little getting used to, but otherwise even the Huff was impressed with the little car's big performance. Would he buy one? "No. I like a winner, and I've just heard that Peugeot's RCZ has snatched the Gay Car crown."

How does your car work?

As cars become increasingly technologically sophisticated, the world that lies beneath their skin can seem like uncharted territory. Thankfully the RAC has come to the rescue, or more particularly Arvid Linde, a car enthusiast on a mission to encourage people to become more familiar with their vehicles. He's written a handy little book for the RAC entitled How Your Car Works (£12.99). It dissects and explains one of the finest inventions ever made and is written in simple, jargon-free language. It will suit everyone from a pupil with a poster of a supercar on his wall, to a housewife who is just curious about the goings-on beneath her car's bonnet to even the more experienced tinkering mechanic – and dare I say it, quite a few motoring journalists as well.

Available from good bookshops and online at and

Today's best video

Today in pictures

More from Wheels
