Compact SUV wades in with a cheery design, decent electric range and reasonable pricing – and shuns the bloat of many modern family cars
The Fiat 600 is not all that it appears. At first glance, you could certainly mistake the new car for being a direct replacement for the firm’s 500X crossover hatchback.Well, supposedly it isn’t. While the 500X is set to continue in production for at least another couple of years, this new, slightly smaller and lower hatchback slots in just beneath it in Fiat’s range, where it will play bigger, four-door sibling to the Fiat 500 – just as the original 600 of the 1950s did.As such, Fiat is trumpeting this car as its return to the traditional European supermini market, in which it last offered a car back in 2018, before the Punto was withdrawn. And so rumbles on Fiat’s now well-worn product strategy of copying the successful recipe of the smaller 500 and pasting it into as many parts of the car market as it possibly can, and giving 500 owners as many new and interesting reasons to come back and trade up as it can think of.This time, owners of the Fiat 500 Electric will be in the crosshairs too. That’s because the 600 will be offered in both EV and 48V mild-hybrid form, the former adopting Stellantis’s latest e-CMP2 chassis, battery and motor technology, but delivering it at a lower showroom price than its many group relations, in what feels like a commercial move borrowed from an old Fiat playbook.So, for the first time since the turn of the 1970s, Fiat will have both a 500 and a 600 in its showrooms.The Fiat 600, like its Jeep Avenger relation, is offered in both 48V mild- hybrid and EV forms. Entry-level spec depends on the powertrain you are buying, with the 600e getting more equipment than the equivalent bottom-rung Hybrid.Run all the way to a 600e La Prima and you receive 18in alloy wheels, extra chrome body trim, heated massage seats, a reversing camera, a powered tailgate, adaptive cruise control and wireless device charging.
