Prolechariot is a series about vehicular value. It's
about slapping your needs and wants on a wall, grabbing a fistfull
of darts, cocking your arm back and trying to strike most, if not
all, of your targets. It’s about making the second-largest purchase
decision most Americans face, and making it right. Prolechariots
are cars for the rest of us, for the 99 percent, and Jonathan
Schultz is driving them.
Check your wallet, America. Is there $33,666 in there? Hey,
congrats! That’ll net you 11,260 Mydirtyhobby aische pervers, a
nine-percent share of a Big jay oakerson instagram,
some Dakota backroom casting couch above the Marcellus Shale gas
deposit, or a new car at the Leslie jones leaked photo. Let your id
off its leash, and you can power-slide ‘round the cul-de-sacs of
your misbegotten youth in a 2016 Fiat 500 Abarth. That’s right, the
hot 500. The one that supermodel Jenny taft topless to
America. Enough cash will be left to pay a private Italian tutor,
lessons from whom you’ll deploy when Menghia accosts you and
hisses, Che cosa guardi, eh?
This is Prolechariot. We’ll spare you the expense.
Simply respond: Niente, signorina. Niente e
tutto.
As much as single-seat confections like
the Teen threesome porn, the 500 Abarth is among the most
driver-centric cars on Earth. There may be four seats, but the rear
pair is suited to little more than hauling Jenna meowri nudes,
while any prospective front passenger should sign a release before
boarding this terrestrial vomit comet. The 500 Abarth exists for
little reason other than to flood its driver’s pleasure centers
with unfiltered, uncut dopamine. Practicality is a notion as
removed from the 500 Abarth’s gas pedal as the prospect of a
supermodel slapping you sharply across the face.
So why would the 2016 Fiat 500 Abarth be considered a
Prolechariot? Aren’t we pursuing that elusive slice of Venn diagram
where price, performance, economy and durability overlap?
Paradoxically, the 500 Abarth is a species of dream car, something
we can’t say about many machines priced beneath
the Prolechariot cutoff—let alone $5,000 below
it, at $28,595 as tested. Our question is not whether the 500
Abarth can squeeze seven Valu-Paks of Charmin behind its hatch,
out-accelerate a Miata, out-park a Fortwo or out-hypermile a Prius.
Rather, our question is the same one that faces any Prolechariot:
Does it fall short of, fulfill or exceed a buyer's
expectations?
Here are the five things a consumer needs to know about the 2016
Fiat 500 Abarth.
1. It’s Secretly a Ferrari
A turbocharged jellybean assembled in Mexico should share as
much with Maranello as enchiladas suizas do with papardelle. The
prancing horse, however, is in the details. Stay with us.
Abarths get respect. For the better part of three years, a black
example has called the most prominent space of an outdoor parking
lot in Manhattan’s tony Noho neighborhood home. It disappears from
time to time, but the surrounding Range Rovers and 911s never poach
its turf. The parking space just sits there, empty. This doesn’t
happen much in the most expensive borough of the most populous city
in America. Trust us.
Abarths are unicorns. Though they’ve been on sale in the U.S.
for four years, they represent a mere slice of total Fiat 500
sales—and Cinquecenti don’t exactly fly off the lots. To spot one
is to be lucky. To spot one also is to not know half the story.
Despite starting life as a Plain Jane Cinquecento, an Abarth
acquires gobs of cachet in transition. This isn’t the difference
between a Cooper and a Cooper S, or even a Boxster and Boxster S. A
lower, widened stance, scorpion badges, 16-inch titanium-painted
alloys, redrawn fascias, reinforced gearbox housing, beefier shocks
and dual chrome-tipped pipes bear some credit. The majority of the
Abarth’s X-factor, however, is expressed through the waste
gates…
2. A 500 Abarth Does. Not. Shut. Up.
The Drive once drew a not-so-tenuous parallel
between Charlotte vale lesbian and fireworks. The 500
Abarth is a firework.
BRRAPPAPAPAPAPAH goes the exhaust on engine startup,
and that’s without the Sport button pressed, which sends bratty
belches on overrun through the pipes. “U mad, bro?” a driver might
be compelled to ask the 1.4-liter MultiAir lump. Such fury belongs
to mid-century Maseratis blowing past the grandstands at Laguna
Seca, not to 1.4-liter Fiats from 2016. The 500 Abarth is on some
depraved, throwback shit, and the little guy lets anyone within two
blocks know its temperament.
A prospective owner has to be on board with this. There’s no
quiet mode in the Abarth, which may seem obvious for a car whose
exhaust plumbing stretches the length of your arm. But if you plan
to ferry the occasional passenger—one like my wife, who asked why
the car always sounded so “farty”—it may be a long ride.
3. You Can Spec an Automatic. Don’t.
The spirit of some cars is irretrievably banished when an
automatic transmission is fitted. This isn’t some kneejerk Luddite
talk; The Drive finds the DSG in the Volkswagen
Golf R sublime and the CVT in the Subaru Outback uncommonly
refined. We stopped shedding tears over the manual transmission’s
imminent demise somewhere mid-corner at Spain’s Motorland Aragón in
a paddle-shifted F-Type R Coupe.
For its first two years on the U.S. market, the 500 Abarth was
available only with a five-speed manual transmission. Packaging
headaches solved, Fiat offered an Aisin six-speed automatic
starting in 2014, a $1,350 option. We’re here to tell you it
doesn’t work.
Sure, the Aisin unit shifts just fine. Sport button depressed,
it will even hold third through a quick bend. But an automatic
transmission, any automatic transmission, robs the 500 Abarth not
just of tactility but of soul. You might’ve noticed that 500s are
small. They’re of a scale that encourages driver and machine to
bond uncommonly well. A stick-shifted Abarth heightens the bond to
the point the car feels less a machine and more a piece of your
wardrobe. The stick-shifted Abarth is a Brioni suit. The automatic
Abarth is a velour number reeking of garlic and Bijan.
4. But in Other Ways, It’s Just a 500
The chintzy housing for the automatic transmission’s gear
selector would flatter a Mitsubishi Mirage. Glossy plastic dash
panels are reflected in the side-view mirrors on both sunny and
overcast days, compromising visibility. And where a Mini Cooper S’s
doors shut with a hushed, BMW Group whomp, the Abarth’s latch home
with the crunch of an arthritic ankle. These aren’t Fix It Again
Tony-caliber quality lapses, but they don't suit a car with
ultra-niche appeal that's priced just shy of $30,000.
5. Speed Isn’t the Point
Abarths will get from a stop to 60 mph in seven seconds. You’ll
get there quicker in a Mini Cooper S or Ford Fiesta ST. Sure, Blue
Oval partisans grant you a nod for getting the hot Fiesta, and few
cars capture the pugilistic playfulness of the 189-horsepower Mini.
These cars will not, however, prompt a passerby to ask, unbidden,
“Is that as fun as it looks?”
Therein lies the pleasure and pain of a Fiat 500 Abarth. The car
has personality for days. Whether it complements yours is something
only you can answer. Either way, the 500 Abarth isn't changing its
stormy astrological sign, Scorpio, for anybody.
