Absent since 1984, Fiat reenters the U.S. market with style, the 2012 500C showing an eye-catching retro design.
Wayne Cunningham
Wayne Cunningham reviews cars and writes about automotive technology for CNET's Roadshow. Prior to the automotive beat, he covered spyware, Web building technologies, and computer hardware. He began covering technology and the Web in 1994 as an editor of The Net magazine.
The Fiat Cinquecento was a tiny car produced in Italy for almost 20 years, from the 1950s to the 1970s. Because it was extremely popular for Fiat, the company brought the nameplate back for a larger model that evokes the style of the original.
The new Fiat 500C has roved the roads of Europe for the past few years, and is now heralding the return of Fiat to the U.S. Although using the same sort of retro styling as the Mini Cooper, it's much cheaper, albeit with less performance.
The little curved front shows very little air intake capability, which is fine for the 875cc two-cylinder engine in European models, but might stifle the 1.4-liter four-cylinder of U.S. models, especially in hot climates.
The cloth top on the 500C rolls back in three positions. It can uncover the front seats, or the entire cabin, or roll back entirely to really open up the interior.
The Blue&Me system has a voice command element for Bluetooth phone and MP3 player integration, but in our testing it did not work as well as Ford Sync, with which it shares core technology.
The base transmission is a five-speed manual, with a six-speed automatic available optionally. The manual transmission gets about 5 mpg better than the automatic.
