Features

This by the way is on the 15-inch wheels. There's an optional 16inch set, which are a less flattering, multi-spoke design and wear tyres a notch up in width and a notch down in profile. Result is more grip and precision, which suggests a decent suspension system well able to take advantage.

But the cornering is less amusingly squirmy, and the ride gets distinctly harder-edged. With this amount of power, I reckon these 16s are too much for normal roads.

In all, this car feels like a bigger thing than it is. Fair enough; it's priced like a bigger thing than it is. When it arrives here in January, it'll wear stickers maybe 10 per cent above an equivalent-engined Panda, and the real gap will be bigger, because I can't see there being any discounts.

For scooting around a city, you can really enjoy the fact it is a proper tiddler, a full half-a-metre shorter than the new generation of superminis. It doesn't quite match the cuddly proportions of the 2004 Trepiuno show car, but then this one has a real engine and meets real laws, so that's hardly surprising. Besides, it would have been an impossible demand to match exactly the proportions of the original 500, since the 1957 model has its engine in the back.

The new 500 is based on the Panda's platform, but manages an even shorter front overhang than a Panda, which is a bit of a miracle given new crash rules. Fiat had to modify the radiator and add an extra set of crush longerons to absorb impacts properly in such a short space. That's an expensive effort.

Meanwhile at the back, to match the original (ultra-cramped) 500's roofline while carving out some space for grown-ups, they had to lower the seat cushion - but even so, it's cramped enough that an average adult would be appealing to the human rights courts after more than a few miles.

One further visual trick: the original car had a strongly pyramidal look, so to give the new one the same sloping-sides stance, they widened the track compared with the Panda. That doesn't just get the desired look, though, it also helps handling and side-impact protection.

Compared with the Panda, you get a wider track, stronger anti-roll bars and a retuned suspension - firmer than the regular Panda's but thankfully a lot less jarring than the Panda 100HP's. The new and stronger crash structure means the steering is more precise, because the body it's mounted to isn't flexing so much. And yet with all this extra strength, the weight has been kept to Panda-par because the 500 is so much smaller at the top. Even the top spec 1.4 is comfortably under a tonne.

The 500 comes with three engines for now: the base 1.2 69bhp petrol, an evolved version of the sweet Panda engine, then there's that ultra efficient 1.3 turbodiesel - 111g/km of CO2 and, for the moment, the top end is the 100bhp 1.4 16valve from the Panda 100HP.

All these engines meet Euro 5 emissions, well ahead of the game. The engineers also snuck us some numbers for the Abarth version, which has a 1.4 turbo kicking out 170lb ft and 135bhp. It'll have big wheels, lower suspension and yards more attitude.

To keep it ahead of the pack, the 500 will soon get a stop/start system across the entire range, cutting town consumption by about 10 per cent. Then in 2010, there's a new engine, a really revolutionary, twin cylinder petrol that does away with an inlet camshaft altogether, the valves being precision opened by electromagnets. Expect 110bhp with CO2 under 100g/km.

Those are sound engineering reasons to be impressed by the 500. But impressed won't do. This car demands love, and it gets that for other reasons.

For the folk memories - of Dante Giacosa and his diligent young engineers putting their nation on wheels from a vast drawing office in Turin; of evenings outside the gelataria, long black hair, headscarves and a flash of dark eyes; of rural grandmothers bringing back a basket of perfect veg from the market; of ragazzi chasing through town, tyre-squeal and valve-bounce echoing off narrow Renaissance streets.

That's the context. The substance, the stuff that makes a car desirable in the 21st century, isn't just the macro-sheet metal that talks, wrapping mechanicals that fizz. It's the details, like having spot on sculpturing for your alloys, the right depth of texture on your dashboard, a set of effortlessly reconfigured instruments, pert little switches with a finger friendly click-clack and a chrome ring surround. Fiat gets all that. The 500 gets it all.

Paul Horrell