The Cinquecento

M

y Cinquecento, “Melissa,” and I went through a lot together, some of which is detailed here. She was a 1995 Cinquecento SX, powered by Fiat’s enthusiastic 900cc fuel injected engine, and came with electric windows, central locking, a sunroof, and a few other bits and pieces. She was painted in what Fiat call “metallic action red” but what most of my mates called “girlie pink.”

When I first bought the Cinquecento (I picked her up on the 21 September 1996) I was doing the same commute as I did in the diesel Fiesta, and I was initially surprised that the Cinq was recording 52 mpg where the Fiesta had recorded 57 mpg. This was certainly encouraging given that I was driving the Cinquecento a little harder, since it was a car that enjoyed corners, yet was clearly optimised for city driving and not longer runs on rural roads at the national speed limit.

Hence, despite lacking in ultimate “go” the Cinquecento was a hoot to drive. The car’s gearing was rather low - top gear was around 18 mph / 1,000 rpm - but despite this, fuel economy was excellent. Even thrashing it around Stoke-on-Trent in the middle of winter only resulted in the economy of the car dipping to 38 mpg, but the usual “city” economy figure was around 43 to 45 mpg. Taking it easy on a long run saw 60 mpg being threatened, but this meant cruising at 60 rather than 70 on the motorway. My usual economy figure on a run was closer to 55 mpg. The economy figures from the Cinquecento were approximately 90% of that achieved from the Fiesta diesel, although using a car with 50% of the engine capacity and 67% of the power.

The Cinquecento was at home in the city. Her small size, low gearing, and excellent visibility meant that she was perfect for nipping about. It was with the Cinquecento that I perfected the “Git Roundabout Technique,” and raced /cough/ a mate who also had a Cinquecento SX 900cc. Fold down the Cinq’s rear seats, and you get a surprisingly large, flat loading area with a half-height bulkhead.

As well as Melissa’s allergy to petrol, she was very cheap to insure. Group 2 insurance, which essentially means that you can’t get anything cheaper this side of a moped (I was quoted the same insurance for a Citroën 2CV!). Some of the savings in these departments were used up in the service costs. Although she only visited the Fiat dealership every 9,000 miles, the bills were always over £100 (and even an Alfa Romeo 146 courtesy car didn’t really compensate for that!) and the dealership experience was never the best in the world.

Whilst I utterly enjoyed driving the Cinquecento, and covered over 40,000 miles in two years, the number of problems was annoying. And whilst she was capable of motorway travel, more and more of my trips were on long drives, where the limitations of a tiny engine, low gearing, and little sound insulation were shown up. Just before I changed her for the Mondeo, I broke the electric window in the frost, and the tappets began to get very noisy, and the 54,000 mile (major expensive) service was looming. With the cost of this service and the electric window repair at just over £500, I took the decision to change the car. I didn’t mourn the passing of the Cinquecento all that much because shortly after selling her, I met my future wife. And whilst Lucy was a different car, with a different design remit, she was more-than-adequate compensation.

With hindsight, the little Fiat’s mechanicals stood up to its treatment remarkably well (I’ve since discovered that getting 50,000 miles from the tappets isn’t all that bad going). The car certainly wasn’t perfect, and the faults I encountered were annoying, but she was very cheap to run and a lot of fun to drive. She was also very spacious, given the tiny road footprint. And given her daily treatment for one month, especially Keele Bank, I’m still surprised how well she stood up to it! This also included winding up the boy racers on Festival Park, especially “Beasty.”

I liked the Cinquecento’s enthusiastic engine, her handling, ride and brakes, how easy she was at parking, how cheap she was to run (primarily fuel economy and insurance) and her cheeky image.

I didn’t like her motorway performance, small petrol tank, haphazard control layout and the Fiat dealerships I visited.

In terms of fuel economy, we averaged 49·3 mpg over 40,000 miles (see chart). In fairness, until I started using the car to commute in Stoke-on-Trent, and driving it with a bit more gusto, I was averaging over 52 mpg.

I had a few problems which included: self-correcting indicator stalk broke, stiff gear lever after a motorway run, exhaust mid and rear pipe broke, tappets going (changed car before tappets!), handbrake sticking in the cold, warranty paint job on rust bubble on the tailgate, broken electric window linkage, and how she kept on blowing bulbs.

But I had a lot of run, including some rather naughty Cinq Racing, and some rather foolish moments involving getting the car nicely warm.