Fiat 500L Trekking review

Our 1.6-litre diesel test car is priced at £20,965, putting it in the squarely in between the outgoing but similarly powerful front-drive Mini Countryman Cooper D and the 2017 the Cooper D All4, while the older Trekking is £1500 cheaper than Mini Countryman Cooper. The Mini is quicker and cleaner, the Trekking fights back on spaciousness with an additional 310 litres of carrying capacity, albeit for the time being, as the new Countryman is said to come with 470 litre of boot space.

The front occupants sit high in seats specific to the Trekking that are mainly covered with a mesh that looks sturdy but could trap dirt, supplemented with attractive faux-leather inserts. Most surfaces are nicely fitted and finished – you’ll need to search to find any truly rudimentary plastics.

Inside there are numerous interior storage spaces, including handy cubbies in the front seat-backs, and the rear seats (60:40, sliding, splitting, folding and pivoting forward so the bases go vertical) offer ample room for third and fourth passengers, and space for a narrow fifth. A false boot floor can sit flush with or above the rear lip. In other words, it’s a very flexible cabin.

Although this is the quickest Trekking, pace is certainly on the leisurely side, however the engine doesn’t labour quite as much as in the larger 500L MPW and can pull smoothly from 1500rpm. It does suffer the same failings in refinement, though, with audible protestation under rising revs, albeit drivetrain vibration is well isolated. The pleasingly chunky gearlever marshals smooth, positive shifts.

While the engine settles at a cruise, the mud and snow tyres grumble a fair bit, especially over rougher asphalt. The Trekking’s raised suspension includes stiffer springs and revised dampers and bushings. Despite this, roll is quite pronounced, albeit within perfectly tolerable limits for this application, while the ride fidgets over high-frequency bumps and is on the firm side in town. There’s also a fingertip-light city mode to the electric steering that is otherwise reasonably direct but mute.

Fiat says the Trekking is ‘for the city dweller that can’t wait for the weekend,’ and has made provision for those weekends to involve some light off-roading. Although unlikely to spend much time on scrubby gravel tracks, this is where the car felt most at home as it loped comfortably along, making use of that healthy ride height, and happily canted itself onto steep-ish verges.