Fifth Gear had a shootout with the Fiat 500 and the Mini 1 tonight. Great little shootout, but the Fiat 500 won by a full second. :(
I do like the looks of the 500, wish it was coming over here.
They also drove the new "Skyline", wow is that a piece of engineering. Look for both on youtube in the near future I'm sure...

 

The new 500s are...interesting. I've seen about three unique ones in the wild now (all white, save the white one with the Italian "tricolore" stripe along the side). I want to like their looks, but they just come off as a bit odd, as do most FIATs do to me. I have yet to drive one.

 

See it here: Fiat 500 versus MINI One track shoot out on YouTube · NF500 For a while at least!

 

why did they race the "sport" version of the fiat vs the base model MINI?

 

Thanks for the link, first time I saw the 500, it looks..... funny. Like a mini and a VW beetle had a little mid night rendezvous and that is their offspring. I did like the way it looks once t was moving around the track tough.

Because they are the closest match.

 

It my be one second faster, however it miles behind on looks. The Mini looks a lot better.

 

The Fiat 500 is not meant to be a "premium" car like MINI. Even the MINI One model cost more than the sport Fiat. MINI has a far superior rear suspension and should perform better on a more twisty course.

Frank Stephenson did a great job designing the Fiat 500, as he did with the MINI. I think the 500 will take the place of MINI as the "cool" small car to own and mod. MINI is steadily becoming too common and too expensive to hold that position.

 

Just saw that last night, I was impressed by the comments regarding the better steering/alive feeling of the Fiat. Bet that Abarth will be a lot of fun, hope they bring it over. (And as I posted elsewhere, when I poked around a few 500s in Europe last fall I liked the interior options I saw, one had houndstooth fabric, too cool.) As for the looks, personally I like it, that slope of the rear and the evoking the original lines is well done. Didn't sound bad either

 

Until it's reported that the 500 will come here I won't even look at the video. Why torture myself? I mean, like it or not, it doesn't pay to have an opinion...we'll not be seeing it here.

 

Is there anywhere on TV that Fifth Gear actually airs here in the states, or do we have to find all the episodes on You Tube and such. I know Top Gear is on BBC America though, which is pretty sweet.

 

Speed used to carry it, but was dropped a couple years ago. I torrent from thebox.biz so I get it about 3 hours after it airs in the UK. The nice thing about torrent vs youtube is the quality of the video. I port it right out to my 55"tv and you'd never know that it wasn't a real tv channel.

 

+1, seems rather ridiculous. The Fiat is ugly as hell, Maybe compare a SMART CAR to a FIAT 500 would be better comparison.
Top gear always has ridiculous comparisons, remember the RC car against the MINI episode?, Come on they must think we are as easy to entertain as a chimpanzee

 

I have to disagree, the two cars are perfectly comparable, similar horsepower, both little two door hatches, same type of car. You may not like the looks but that is besides the point of car comparos.



Ran across this old vs new 500 pic and just liked it

 

You mean Fifth Gear. Top Gear is a different show.

 

Top gear has ridiculous comparisons too... remember Veyron vs James' Airplane? Hahahaa

I think that dry sense of humor is just a little too subtle for some folks...