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| Gorgeous, responsive, smooth... and green |
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Fiat has come up with a 'fun-to-drive' index. What they reckon is, regardless of how fast a car can sprint from 0 to 62mph, or manage flat-out on a motorway, 'fun' comes down - largely - to the first few seconds of acceleration. When you put your foot down, do you feel a flat fart of complaint, or does the car surge eagerly forward? The Fiat people reckon that this, not outright velocity, is what defines that overused cliché: 'fun'. And in this respect the new Fiat green machine, the Bravo Eco (62.8mpg combined, 119g/km CO2), has all the chutzpah of much thirstier, dirtier motors. Almost regardless of speed and revs, the Bravo Eco proves willing when you wield your whip, even if it runs out of puff quite quickly after that.
And the Fiat bods are right, because the Eco version of the 105bhp 1.6 Multijet diesel-engined 5-door hatchback IS fun to drive, although there's more to it than this instant throttle response. It's also fun because it squats confidently on the Tarmac and the steering has a truly lovely feel, connecting you seamlessly to the road and the car's clever handling. After the first half hour in the car, I began to suspect that it wasn't the Eco model at all: particularly as there's no badging on the body to announce to the world that you're a low-polluting greenie. (Surely that's a marketing mistake? It's no longer cool to boast that you have a huge, super-fast, gas-guzzling engine; you want people to know you're clean and green. Big Eco badges would help.)
But despite my doubts, this gorgeous, responsive, smooth hatchback was indeed the Eco version. Just for comparison, I drove the 120bhp model too, and started to think that I actually preferred the Eco. Yes, okay, it's slower on paper but the engine feels smoother and that low-end torque, giving the instant response from low revs that Fiat promised, is there at anything over about 1500rpm.
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