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.
That's four stars for the regular Abarth Grande Punto, five for the Esseesse.
There's more to the Abarth than extra power and some visual pizzazz; the whole driving experience is quite different from that of a tamer Punto. The engine's torquey thrust is part of it, of course, a thrust comparable to that of the BMW turbo engine used in the Peugeot 207 GT and GTI. But the way the Abarth steers and handles is what sets it apart from the standard car.
The electric power steering is still a touch springy and artificial in its feel, but the bite of the front end sharpens its responses nicely. Fiat has decided to make the standard-fit ESP non-switchable, which has enabled the Abarth engineers to make the chassis very 'pointy' and driftable in the knowledge that the electronics will rein it in when needed. 4Car tried the Abarth on a wet track at first and we found remarkable front-end grip, hardly any understeer except on very tight bends, and a delightful tendency to edge its tail out whenever throttling-off. Then the ESP gently intervenes and you can hold the Punto in the perfect attitude all the way through the bend, revelling in the surprising traction that lets the engine give its best.
The Abarth stays quite flat in corners and can be flung tidily through S-bends thanks to taut damping. All the while you're well held in the shapely, firmly-bolstered seats that support your shoulders nicely without being so obtrusive that they make it impossible to look over your shoulder. The driving position is excellent, as are the uprated brakes and the precise, smooth six-speed gearchange.
Then you drive the Esseesse. If there's a devil in you, this is when it will appear because the Esseesse is riotously entertaining. The extra urge from its engine is part of it, of course, but even better are the sound effects that go with it. Overlaying the deep exhaust blare - miraculously, the engineers have managed not to let this create head-destroying resonances inside the cabin - are fabulous rally-car sound-effects on nearly every gearchange, pops and crackles which are damped to civility but loud enough to make this Punto seem like a living, breathing thing.
The extra negative camber, the lower stance and the yet-wider tyres transform the steering. It loses most traces of its electric power assistance because the forces acting on the front wheels are strong enough and focused enough to cut through the assistance. The result is wonderful precision and some proper feedback, the sort of steering seldom found nowadays (although the Renault Megane R26's is similar). Add to this the crisper throttle response and the ultra-firm, progressive brakes and you have a car that feels ready to attack the nearest rally stage with total conviction. This is how a proper hot hatch should be, best enjoyed with the optional racing seats, which are among the best we've experienced.
Performance figures are: 129mph and 0-62mph in 8.2 seconds for the Abarth, 134mph and 0-62mph in 7.7 seconds for the Esseesse. These are respectable figures but not class-leading and there's also more turbo lag than you'll find in BMW's direct-injection turbo engines as used in the Mini Cooper S and the hot Peugeot 207s . That said, the throttle response is crisp enough, the engines sound good and, with six gears on offer, it's easy to keep the engines spinning quickly enough to minimise the lag.
In normal mode, the Abarth engine has a gentle build-up of torque but still feels muscular. In Sport Boost everything happens more quickly, but not so much that the suspension and tyres can't cope: there's no detectable torque steer even on a wet road. In both modes it's better to change up well before the rev-counter's 6,500rpm red line because power is fading fast by then.
Not so the Esseesse, in which the Sport Boost button simply sharpens the throttle response map a bit with no alteration in ultimate output. The better breathing makes the engine keener to rev and sharper on the throttle, giving the illusion of a faster gearshift because the shift can be bracketed with your accelerator actions more closely. This 180bhp engine will be used in the race-series version of the Abarth 500, in which car it should be hilarious.
