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Fiat’s attempt at adding Italian sophistication to an MX-5 has mixed results. Respectable to use, unconvincing as a sports car

What is it?

The Fiat 124 Spider marks the Italian car maker’s return to a part of the new car scene that it hasn’t occupied for more than a decade, since the demise of the Barchetta. And compared with its immediate predecessor, the new 124 Spider comes to the UK with two big advantages: it’s rear-wheel drive and it’s available in right-hand-drive form.

But unlike Fiat’s last, this Italian roadster isn’t coachbuilt in Italy and quite plainly hasn’t been styled to cut quite the same visually arresting dash as the Barchetta. The 124 Spider is the long-anticipated sister car of the fourth-generation Mazda MX-5. Originally intended to be an Alfa Romeo rather than a Fiat (before Fiat bosses decided that all new Alfas must be made in Italy), it is built on the same production line as the Mazda in Hiroshima, Japan.

But the 124 courts a more mature and laid-back audience than the Mazda, offering a slightly bigger boot than its equivalent as well as softer suspension and a turbocharged engine that gives up greater torque and needn’t be worked as hard.

Our test experience of the car has so far been limited to Italian roads. Now to find out exactly how well those becalmed chassis settings take to the UK’s better B-roads.

What's it like?

In the raw, the 124 Spider ought to strike you as the perfect amalgam of Japanese engineering and Italian design. It ought to be more visually enticing than an MX-5. Well, it isn’t; not, at any rate, in the dark metallic shade that our test car was supplied in.

Though by no means unappealing to look at, the car fails to put its elongated overhangs and sculptured surfaces to effective use, and parked next to its Mazda cousin it actually strikes you as the slightly clumsier-looking car.

You wonder, too, if this can really have been Fiat’s best effort at honouring the original 1966 124 Spider. In this tester’s eyes, none of the obvious attempts at homage – the curious round-but-not-quite-round headlights, the tapered ‘swallowtail’ rear wings and upward-kinked waistline – really work. Fiat has toyed with retro design here without committing and simultaneously failed to make a pretty forward-looking machine either.

Still, on the outside at least you wouldn’t confuse the 124 and MX-5 – and few who don’t know about their relationship would guess it. Stoop inside the 124’s cabin, though, and its distinctiveness quickly wanes.

If Fiat had really wanted to claim some unoccupied market territory for this car and make it a more mature take on the affordable rear-driven roadster, it might have made the cockpit more spacious or more sheltered – or at least departed from the MX-5’s clearly recognisable cabin architecture somewhere. But for the Fiat badge on the steering boss, however, you could be sitting in the Mazda. And that means you sit comfortably enough but somewhat restricted by your immediate surroundings, without much in the way of useful storage and fairly exposed to the elements even with the side windows and wind deflector in place. The car’s boot is larger than that of the MX-5 but only marginally, and so there’s very little that a 124 Spider would carry that an MX-5 would not.

Fiat’s 1.4-litre ‘Multiair II’ turbo engine does seem to check off a key priority by offering something different from that which you get in the 124 Spider’s Mazda sister car. Splitting the difference between the 1.5 and 2.0-litre naturally aspirated versions of the MX-5 on power output, 0-62mph sprinting pace and claimed fuel economy, and putting accessible mid-range torque onto the menu for those who’d like it, the 124 Spider looks like it might have all the bases covered. But in practice, while this is certainly a comfier and easier-going drive than the MX-5, it’s plainly not a car with half as much sporting appeal.

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The gentleness of the 124 Spider’s suspension, its notable propensity for body roll and the softness of its steering and throttle response make it a car that seems much heavier than it might have. In town and over long-wave lumps and bumps, there’s a compliance and a fluency to the car’s ride that seems agreeable on the occasions when it’s working in your favour.

But overall, and particularly when you drive the car with a bit of spirit, the handling keenness, vivacity and precision you expect of a rear-driven roadster just aren't present. The Fiat’s steering is heavier and more dull than the Mazda’s, and its cornering balance is plainly less sweet. Fiat’s decision to combine 177lb ft, an open differential and dialled-down damper rates can also lead to lurching, untidy and unsuccessful attempts at throttle-steer when you do start to experiment.

Keep your excitement levels in check and the stability control switched on, though, and you’ll find the 124 Spider a fairly obliging car to drive briskly – but even here, it’s not all it might have been. That 1.4-litre turbo engine has only the doziest sort of response below 2000rpm, making inclines quite hard work and shift-free overtaking manoeuvers rare.

Get the motor on boost and it does indeed make the 124 Spider feel strong through the gears and away from low speeds, in a way an MX-5 does not. But you can’t work the Fiat engine at high revs as you might like to. Above 4500rpm the 1.4-litre unit’s best work is behind it; above 5000rpm it gets quite strained and wheezy.

At a moderate cruise, the best real-world fuel economy you can hope for is in the high-30s – which is no better than an MX-5 would have provided.

Should I buy one?

Maybe – but you’ll have to be a very rare and strange roadster buyer to find a good, rational reason.

There are plenty of irrational ones, mind you, but consumers of Italian sports cars have for a long time been well acquainted with those. And if there does happen to be in your past a Fiat, Alfa Romeo or Lancia convertible whose memory you’d like to rekindle, the 124 Spider’s impression of it should just about pass muster.

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This is by no means a bad take on the classic Italian open-top two-seater but it lacks the distinctiveness and clarity of purpose to make it a good one.

2016 Fiat Spider Lusso Plus

Location Feltham, Middlesex; On sale now; Price £23,295; Engine 4 cyls, 1368cc, turbo, petrol; Power 138bhp; Torque 177lb ft; Gearbox 6-spd manual; Kerbweight 1050kg; 0-62mph 7.5sec; Top speed 134mph; Economy 44.1mpg (combined); CO2/tax band 148g/km, 26%

 

Rivals:

Mazda MX-5 2.0 Sport Nav

Mini Cooper S Convertible

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce PhantomTesla RoadsterAriel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren SennaRenault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.

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andrea 6 August 2016

It's design with a different

It's design with a different idea in mind and for a different audience then the mazda. It was never though to be the same car with the same body. It's a more relax convertible in an italian tradition, as they use to do back in the days. i love the mazda but to be honest i personally prefer the previous design if not the very first one.
Marc 5 August 2016

I find it difficult to

I find it difficult to understand how AC awards this car 3 stars, when it's hansom, small, lightweight, economical, quick, fun car. It then awards the Evoque Convertible which is an overweight, expensive, pig ugly, uneconomical shit box that is built by a load comedians somewhere in yam yam land 3.5?
Zimmerit 3 August 2016

Trouble is

I get the distinct impression that the 3 stars are partly as a result of the styling issues, could be wrong but there you go. Personally I like both the Mazda and the Fiat, neither offends me for any particular reason. Even above the Abarth I would prefer the new Mazda hard top/coupe version, love that.
Zimmerit 3 August 2016

Trouble is

I get the distinct impression that the 3 stars are partly as a result of the styling issues, could be wrong but there you go. Personally I like both the Mazda and the Fiat, neither offends me for any particular reason. Even above the Abarth I would prefer the new Mazda hard top/coupe version, love that.