NF500 / fifth gear

We knew it wouldn’t take long. Last night’s Fifth Gear show, featuring a head to head with the Fiat 500 Sport and MINI One has appeared on YouTube.

To save you some time searching for it, here it is:

The Fiat 500 1.4 sport beat the MINI One around the track on UK TV channel Five’s “Fifth Gear” motoring magazine show this evening (25th February).

The white and red Fiat 500 beat the MINI One by a clear second around the Fifth Gear track. Both were cars commandeered by Vicki Butler-Henderson, the Fiat 500 completing the circuit in one minute and 35.1 seconds.

Unlike previous MINI V 500 features, Fifth gear at least made an attempt to compare more similar vehicles, the 1.4 Sport and the 1.4 MINI One, coming in at around £1,000 difference in retail price (the MINI the more expensive of the two).

More on the official website.

Now the fun of Christmas and New Year is over, Fiat UK are doing their best to alleviate that down-in-the-dumps feeling by starting the hype for a whole new celebration.

The Fiat 500 is due to be launched officially 500 hours into 2008, at eight o’clock on the 21st of January, riding high in one of the capsules at the London Eye.

As part of the London Eye event, Fiat are also staging a celebrity and showbiz ticketed event, which will feature live bands and “fantastic light show”. Sure, it may struggle to live up to the 2008 New Year event at the same location, but it sounds fun all the same!.

Fiat UK Marketing Director, Elena Bernardelli, is quoted in an official Fiat press release as saying;

It will be a great event, and we at FIAT are committed to making the country smile for the night.

Fiat have also launched a new website for the UK to coincide with the launch, which includes the oppurtunity to win tickets to the launch event in London. The style of marketing appears to be taking a leaf from other recent car launches aimed at the younger end of the car buying market, such as the new MINI, Volvo C30 or Vauxhall Corsa. That is to say, it’s a bit irreverent.

If you’re unable to make it to London for the UK launch event, have no fear, for the launch is being broadcast at just about every Fiat dealership in the land, as well as reportedly on TV channel Five, ahead of motoring show Fifth Gear.

Following Fifth Gear’s rather gushing report on the new Fiat 500, it will come as no surprise to many to learn the dimunitive car has been awarded as the the Channel 5 show’s “Best Small Car of the Year”. Which is even more impressive considering the show comes from the UK, where the car is several months from release.

Accepting the award at Fiat’s UK headquarters in Slough, Berkshire, Giulio Salomone, Managing Director of Fiat Group Automobiles UK said:

We are absolutely delighted with this great honour.

Clearly the British public like what they see in our new 500 – already more than 5,000 have expressed an interest in ordering one – and it’s fantastic to see that motoring experts such as those working on Fifth Gear agree.

The new 500 scooped one of only three category awards given in Fifth Gear’s annual honours, the others being Best Family Car and Best Fast Car. It was praised by the show’s presenters and production team for its style, handling, performance and build quality.

Special mention was also made of the new 500’s recent Euro NCAP five star crash safety rating (35 points) which puts it among the safest cars available in Europe today.

The Best Small Car is arguably the most important award Fifth Gear gives out as more small cars are sold in the UK than any other sector,

says James Woodroffe, Producer, Fifth Gear.

Consumers want a supermini that doesn’t feel like it’s built to a budget, but is styled with flair, and comes with the maximum five star Euro NCAP safety rating.
The Fiat 500 fits the bill better than anything else we’ve driven this year and was a unanimous choice.

The 500 has already gone on sale in many mainland European countries, including Italy, France, Germany and Spain and will be launched in the UK early in 2008. Available with a choice of three engines, built to comply with the latest and toughest Euro 5 exhaust emissions regulations, and either five or six-speed gearboxes. A Dualogic sequential robotised 5-speed gearbox will become available next year for the petrol engines.

The engine range comprises the 69 bhp 1.2 and the 100 bhp 1.4 petrol units from the FIRE family that boasts a total output of over 10 million engines to date, plus the widely acclaimed 75 bhp 1.3 16v MultiJet turbodiesel with DPF, of which over two million have been built to date.

UK television motoring show Fifth Gear featured the new Fiat 500 recently, and the show is now on YouTube in full.

In all honesty, the review feels a little half hearted, however they do seem to believe the “really cute” Fiat 500 could knock the MINI off its perch as top of the bill for new cars in the UK.

Tom Ford (the reviewer) is not a small man in any way, and he does make the interior looked extremely cramped, especially in the rear. His words are all positive, but when you saw the angle he was wedged in there, well, actions speak louder so they say.

Anyway, it looks like Tom in particular is in love, and that can only be good news for Fiat.