To celebrate the Cinquecento’s third birthday, Fiat has announced a new motor for one of the more recreations on the road today. Where the Beetle failed dismally to capture the essence of its ancestor, the Cinquecento has got it spot on. A tad pricey, maybe, in South Africa, but it is a fine, fun little car, with plenty of attitude.
Now, it will be chugging under African skies with an all-new two-cylinder 900cc motor, with an output of 63kW. Which doesn’t sound like much, but this is a light city car, not a boy-racer, so it will, no doubt, do the job just fine. Fiat claims a top speed of 173kph, which sounds a bit scary, even if the car has all the safety gumpf needed to garner a five-star NCAP rating. What will be interesting will be to see if it lives up to its promised 4.1l/100km in combined urban and extra-urban urban cycles…
