2014 Abarth 500 Esseesse: First Review

It is my 26^th birthday today, I tell myself as I struggle to get out of bed at 4am. I look out the window, twilight ensues and not even the birds are up yet. Miserable way to spend your birthday morning. And then it dawns, I am going to spend a day with a Abarth 500 Esseesse, a car I have long dreamt of owning. Will it live up to its hype?

Standing pretty under a shed at Fiat’s Ranjangoan stockyard, protected from the scorching 45 degree heat, the Abarth 500 Esseessse felt like a breath of fresh air. If there is one car in the world that truly tries to define the phrase ‘Beauty and the Beast’, it is this. Based on the extremely popular Fiat 500 hatchback, the Abarth 500 Esseessse is essentially a tuned version of the standard car and obviously looks way more aggressive.

A sportier bumper with a large air intake, side gills and a built in air splitter accentuates the front of the Abarth. The large ‘Abarth Scorpion’ badge combined with the chrome slat pays tribute to the original Abarth 500s of the 1960s. Moving to the side, the ground effect additions to the standard Fiat 500’s body continues with sportier side skirts and a set of 17-inch Abarth wheels. The Shreklike ORVMs, painted in a shade of white to match the Abarth decals look right in place on this little supermini.

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Around the back, the Fiat 500’s cuteness has been replaced by typical Abarth madness. Althought there is no fixed open tail gate engine cover like the ones found in the original Fiat 500 Abarth from the 60s, one does find a sporty rear bumper with a built in diffuser. The large twin exhaust setup looks right in place on this little road racer and the gills on the side help improve airflow around the rear wheels. The large ‘Abarth’ and ‘Esseessse’ logos combined with a small spoiler showcase the little hatchback’s sporty potential.

The interior of the Abarth 500 Esseessse looks stunning. With a large red slab of high quality plastic festooning the art-deco dashboard, the Abarth 500 Esseessse is a pretty good place to be in. The interior, in terms of pure spec, when compared to the likes of a Mini Cooper does feel a little outdated though with no large LCD screen and extras like satellite navigation to give you company. The large boost guage with shift indicator does look stunning and so does the huge speedometer console with its gauge-in-gauge design. The car also gets a set of sportier aluminum pedals.

The Abarth 500 Esseessse gets large race seats festooned in high quality leather that are extremely comfortable but as with most Fiat seats just don’t give you an optimum driving position. The adjustable sports steering wheel feels great to hold but is just a tad bit too large for the car. The rear seats are best suited for a couple of rather skinny supermodels, or your children, depending on the kind of lifestyle you enjoy, but will certainly not fit two large fully drown adults.

How does the Abarth 500 Esseessse drive? For starters, we would have expected a start/stop button on the car but sadly, Abarth still uses the same flip key found on the normal Fiat 500. The standard 1.4-litre engine has been turbocharged to produce 160PS of peak power at 5750rpm and an equally tasty 230Nm of peak torque at 3000rpm. The free revving nature of this four cylinder engine combined with the added advantages of torque induction makes this one of the creamiest engines we have driven in recent times.

Thankfully, the turbocharged engine has been mated to a 5-speed manual gearbox and not to an automatic like the one found in the Mini Cooper S or the Mercedes-Benz A-Class. The minimal 1035kg weight of the Abarth 500 Esseessse gives it a phenomenal power to weight ratio and even the fact that the it is front wheel drive does not take anything away from the pure driving pleasure this little car has to offer.

The little Abarth feels just as brisk as the likes of the more expensive Mini Cooper while feeling more involved and connected to the driver at all times. The Abarth 500 Esseessse also feautres one of the raspiest exhaust notes found in any car under the Rs 50 lakh segment. In fact it is only logical to compare the music emanating from the twin pipes of the Abarth 500 Essesss to the likes of Luciano Pavarotti singing his version of the Nessun Dorma.

A hot hatchback though is not only about plonking a big powerful engine into a small car and leaving everything else as it is. The best parts about a hot hatchback has always been the way they love devouring corners and the Abarth 500 Esseessse is no different. The 205/40 R17 tyres combined with the sportier Abarth suspension makes the 500 Essess handle like it is on rails. There is no hint of torque steer even when the full potential of the turbocharged engine is unleashed. The Abarth 500 Esseessse handles uneven road surfaces and smoother tarmac with equal ease. The large cross drilled and ventilated disc brakes on both front and rear wheels festooned with large red calipers too inspire confidence at any speed.

The Abarth 500 Esseessse is one of the few cars that is damn near perfect even with all its little niggles. It redefines cute while still managing to accelerate fast enough to make you fizzy inside. The interior exudes quality and although it is not as highly speced as its competitors, the Abarth 500 Esseessse feels just as desirable. The combination of a turbocharged 4-pot engine and a manual gearbox too is as tempting as reaching out and touching the Mona Lisa. So the verdict is pretty clear cut on this one then.

If Fiat can price the Abarth 500 Esseessse at or below the Rs 25 lakh as they have claimed in the recent past, it will be a truly spectacular car. At the end of it all, waking up at 4am on my birthday did seem like a pretty good idea, especially when at one point my colleagues found me serenading the Abarth 500 Esseessse with John Legend’s ‘All of me’. As cars go, the Abarth 500 Esseessse is truly capable of being all the car you will ever need.