Picture a summer’s day, when some ants have stayed their regular size, but a few ants are ginormous, and it makes your senses shimmer as you struggle to figure out which is the normative ant. The Fiat 500X is the car version of that: in SUV terms, very tidy and compact but, compared with a regular Fiat 500, freakishly large, its features bulbous and cartoonish, which makes it bouncy and near-comical when you have it in bright red.
The cabin is lacquered to such a high, primary-coloured sheen that you can practically see your own face in the glove compartment. This is useful if you’ve ever wondered what you’d look like reflected in a pool of blood; less so when you’re trying to concentrate on the road. Otherwise, it’s surprisingly roomy, though this is only a surprise if you were expecting a regular Fiat. My worry is that the ubiquity of the 500 makes it hard to adjust to the larger version. Even though it looked classy – a more integrated, intuitive design than SUVs at a similar price point (I’m looking malignantly at the Nissan Duke, again) and a not insignificant engine – it doesn’t score any status points.
It has a high biting point and a sudden clutch; I definitely didn’t burn it and fill the car with the acrid smell of amateurism, but I can well imagine that happening. The seats are idiosyncratically decked out in tweed. It’s a bit like a modern provincial restaurant trying to look like an old gentleman’s club, and failing, putting black pudding on everything but somehow endearing itself to you. Although spacious, it’s not a heavy, lumbering drive. The boot isn’t massive, but you could probably stash extra luggage on top of your offspring in the back seats. It’s not magnificently exciting; it’s fast enough, it accelerates enough, it won’t shame you on a motorway nor disappoint you on a corner, but I never rubbed my hands together as I approached it or growled like a tiger.
There’s a large, fancy touchscreen, power sockets, a start/stop button and (don’t ask me how) a chilled storage container on the dash. (I didn’t try it with an ice-cream. It’s just to keep your smoothie at a sub-ambient temperature on the way to work.) It’s the styling and the extras that will swing it for the seekers of the small SUV. (SU-Wee, if you prefer.) Build an empire on your cuteness, that’s Fiat’s motto. Whether it will work scaled up, only the committed lovers of the cute can decide.
Fiat 500X: in numbers
Price £19,095
Top speed 115mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 10.5 seconds
Combined fuel consumption 68.9mpg
CO2 emissions 109g/km
Eco rating 8/10
Cool rating 6/10
