Category: Hot Hatchbacks 
Price Range: No data available
Great-looking hot hatch properly designed for a good time, grippy, rapid and involving. Great heritage too. Esseesse kit makes it riotously entertaining.
The jury is out on the ride comfort until we try them in the UK, and Grande Punto cabin feels cheap.
Fiat shows again that it understands its past and knows how to make it work in the present. This is a proper hot hatch, especially in wonderfully non-PC Esseesse form, and great value.
Abarth, Fiat's specialised tuning brand, is back. The tuning company formed by Austrian-turned-Italian Carlo Abarth back in 1949 created some beautiful little racing cars and later became, effectively, Fiat's competition department. Many enthusiasts remember the giant-slaying racing Fiat 600s with their fat wheels and their open engine covers keeping the rear-mounted engines cool and helping the aerodynamics in the process.
In recent years the Abarth brand has degenerated into a mere badge for a sporty-looking Fiats, but now Fiat has woken up again to the potential the Abarth brand offers.
Abarth has been recreated as a separate division, based in its old headquarters at Corso Marche, Turin. There is to be a range of Abarth-branded cars (with no Fiat badging) plus equipment to make them into race or rally cars. Already several Grande Punto Super 2000 rally cars have been sold and campaigned with great success, and the expertise Fiat has gathered for the Abarth enterprise will also be used for other hot Fiat group products (including, intriguingly, some future Lancias) as needed.
First off is the Abarth Grande Punto. It uses the turbocharged version of Fiat's 1.4-litre, 16-valve engine, similar to those used in the new Bravo but here developing 155bhp. Its standard torque peaks at 152lb-ft, reached at 5,000rpm, but depressing the 'power boost' button raises the peak to 170lb-ft at 3,000rpm: a rush of torque instead of a gentle build-up.
The suspension is stiffened by 20% and lowered by 10mm, the track is 6mm wider thanks to the broader 17" wheels, the front anti-roll bar is thicker and there are two-piston front brake calipers by Brembo.
The wider wheels are shielded by black wheelarch lips and a deeper front valance with side ducts adds a visual aggression and improves airflow. Twin tailpipes, red side stripes and red door mirrors complete the visual makeover, while inside there's leather covering for the steering wheel and gearlever knob plus a fine pair of racy bucket seats. Aluminium pedals are also standard, and there's a big list of accessories including helmet holders and extra body graphics.
Whatever, the Abarth Grande Punto looks great: sporty, functional and purposeful, without suffering the over-styling that spoils the Corsa VXR yet looking more the race/rally part than the low-key 207 GTI.
The best part of the options list concerns the Esseesse kit, named after the SS kits Abarth used to make for the tiny Fiat 500 to convert it into a 595 or 695 SS. In the Punto, the 'esseesse' causes the engine, by means of an ECU change plus freer-flowing intake and exhaust systems, to produce 180bhp and 201lb-ft - extraordinary outputs for a 1.4.
The kit also includes 18" Oz wheels, drilled front discs with pads to suit and suspension lowered another 20mm, which introduces some negative wheel camber. Racing seats are worth ordering with this kit for the full effect. The kit must be fitted by an official Abarth dealer or tuning centre (yet to be appointed in the UK) within a year or 12,500 miles of buying the car.
The Abarth Grande Punto goes on sale in early 2008 for around £13,000, plus an estimated £3,500 for the Esseesse kit.
