Fiat Topolino review

The Topolino (or ‘little mouse’) is basically a Fiatine interpretation of the Citroen Ami L7 quadricycle (they both sit under the Stellantis umbrellacorp), but with a tad more flair. Deliberately named after one of Fiat’s iconic original city cars, the 1950 Fiat Topolino 500, it’s a 28mph max, 46-mile range enclosed quadricycle with a 5.4kWh battery that charges from a home socket in four hours.

It’s only got 8bhp and hits 62mph from rest in … never, the 0-28mph sprint taking ten seconds. Perfect if you only need to go just over there, and not very quickly.

What it does have is charm and plastic panels, and a minimum of those. It’s basic, aggressively cute and only useful in very specific circumstances. But if that’s you, it’s a charming little thing. To look at, at least.

The big news isn’t really the price, either – at £9k in the UK it’s far too much cash for outright purchase, really. But in Europe, confirmed pricing is €39 a month on a lease – less than a Sky Sports package for the telly.

Sounds… specific.

Just to remind you, ‘micromobility’ is the next big thing. The Topolino and its Citroen Ami twin are quadricycles, meaning that they don’t have the performance, safety features or luxuries (like heating and ventilation) that proper cars have. So they’re cheaper, slower and less capable. But also better than a sweaty/virulent Underground carriage. And on a wet Tuesday morning, better than walking or an e-bike.

Some of the worrying stuff is that when you take a good look at the welding on the square tube chassis, it’s less precise than paint thrown at a wall, and the levels of sealant liberally applied would be more appropriate in a public bathroom. Still, the idea is that you’ll never be going fast enough to need crash structures, and that L7 designated vehicles aren’t allowed on dual carriageways, motorways or faster roads. There are also no airbags. Though no one seems to mention what would happen if you got punted by a Scania on a 60mph B road. 

The Topolino is all about the urban, then. Plastic panels that are mirrored mean easy fixes and durable ‘dyed-in-the-mass’ finishes, so scratches still exist, they just show up less. The front is the back and the back is the front, so they can be swapped (lights aside) and even the doors are mirrored, with the hinge plates in the same places, so the driver’s door opens suicide-style and the passenger’s is normal. It’s clever and neat – but not luxurious. 

What models are available?

One model, a few different trims. So all get the same battery pack and motor and basic panels. Launch models come in Verdevita (teal green) or Corallo (coral red), though other colours will be launched ‘per quarter’ as the dyes have to be changed for the panels – it’s not painted, but manufactured in that shade.

The Topolino Sport is designed to appeal primarily to the ‘younger audience’ and draw inspiration from the Nuova Sport 500 of 1958. The marketing talks of ‘unmistakably dynamic presence’ but that consists of… colours and stripes. So that’s white with a red stripe, blue with white stripes, yellow with black stripes, and black with red stripes. Then there are black headlight frames, matte-black painted wheels, black mirror caps and Sport badges. Inside, there are black seats and a dash-top box (called the ‘DolceVita Box’) wrapped in carbon-effect vinyl and a new type of seatbelt.

The other is a 200-off collaboration with French seaside firm Vilebrequin, which gets white over blue as an exterior colourway, a cloth sunroof and the company’s signature turtle embroidered all over the dash box. That’s the really cool one.

Interestingly, the related TRIS three wheeler is a similar micromobility machine designed for last mile delivery. Central driving position and handlebars, the modern Piaggio Ape. The TRIS can haul two standard euro pallets in its 2.25m-square trayback – there are covered options for the possible 420kg payload, too – and the 56-mile range from a 6.9kWh battery. We’re not saying that would be more useful. But that would be more useful.

What about the details?

As per the mission statement, there aren’t many. You can have a hand fan that sits in a small cup on the dash so slackly that it spins itself and always faces the windscreen – handy in a car with no ventilation apart from the middle-hinged windows (they don’t go up and down). There are ‘Monster’ magnetic pod speakers that produce a genuinely surprising sound, but they’re supposed to be able to attach to the upper rails of the chassis in the roof, and unfortunately fall off thanks to the aforementioned sealant applied apparently randomly – which is not magnetic.

The dash-top box is useful enough, but given that the Topolino has the security of a picnic basket, you wouldn’t really want to leave much in there. But there’s space to put stuff by the passenger’s fixed-position seat, and bimbling about in moderate temperatures, it’s a breezy, fun way of navigating a (very) urban environment.

How does it drive though?

Really badly. Although our experiences of quadricycles is limited to the Citroen Ami and the Reva G-Wiz, so in context, average. There appears to be very little suspension, which you still need, even in town; the steering is so vague as to be riddled with dementia, and a rack so slow it’s genuinely disconcerting. Though the latter of those is likely to prevent you from hard-pitching the car into a roundabout and subsequently onto its roof. As long as you’re going downhill with the wind behind you.

The issue is that with a top speed of 28mph, the Topolino feels too slow unless in absolute stop/start traffic. You’ll get murdered by mopeds at the lights and generally feel like you’re getting in everyone’s way.

Aggressively cute, compact and cheap to run, the Topolino has a place. But that place is for people with very specific use cases. It’s desperately slow, has playskool suspension, appears to be made of hope and cobwebs and you need to approach it like a covered moped and dress accordingly, because there is precisely no HVAC.

The saving grace is that it will be cheap to lease if you don’t want to spend money on a Travelcard, buttons to run and it’s absolutely the least aggressive/macho car on the planet. You are compensating for nothing with this vehicle. Undercompensating, even. So it turns out that the Topolino’s ‘place’ is possibly the size of one London Borough or city metro system.