Byline: Robert Hardman
FROM a distance, it looks like a promotional stunt by the tomato industry or a giant Easter egg. Once inside, I could be back in the Sixties were it not for a few digital gizmos on the dashboard and the lack of hippy hits on the radio.
This is a car with all the roominess of a phone box, all the acceleration of a moped. And the manufacturer cannot churn them out fast enough.
Because this reincarnation of a motoring classic has not merely scooped a string of awards and been declared Car Of The Year for 2008 by an international panel of auto boffins. It has also been voted the 'sexiest' car on the road by women.
Replica Epi leather HandbagsIn a recent survey by evecars.com, the motoring website for lady drivers, women were asked for their definition of sex on wheels and the Fiat 500 came out way ahead of Ferraris, Bentleys and all those other cars which men think women are impressed by.
It is 50 years since Fiat brought out the original 500, or 'Cinquecento', the cheeky bubble car with a hairdryer for an engine and bags of character. It still smacks of Mediterranean sunshine and dolce vita, so much so that the chaps at Top Gear magazine have rated it the 'sexiest' car of all time.
Half a century later, its successor has the girls drooling over its dinky little features.
The poll has certainly surprised a notoriously blokey industry which is seldom accused of pandering to its feminine side.
But it is also very good news for anyone wondering what car to buy for a woman. Because, with a starting price of just over ?8,000, this thing is a bargain.
Convenient? Yes. Cheap? Yes.
But sexy? I trundle down London's Sloane Street and on to the King's Road. This is natural show-off territory, full of women sporting unnecessary sunglasses and next week's designer handbag.
None of them is staring at me, let alone threatening to drape herself across what passes for a bonnet on this thing.
I am hardly invisible. I am in a new Fiat 500 with 'sports trim' and scarlet paintwork. Fiat calls it 'pasodoble red' and it's as red as lipstick. But not a single one of the surly teenagers, sauntering models, imperious bankers' wives or Chelsea matriarchs on these expensive pavements registers even a flicker of interest.
Isn't this thing meant to ooze chic and sex appeal? The makers launched it with a whole squawk of celebrities. The brochures portray it in all sorts of aspirational locations riviera, golf course, stately home. And yet, with me at the wheel, it is turning no more heads than a delivery van.
SOME fashion expertise is called for. I turn off down a mews to seek the advice of Hannah Sandling, fashion writer, TV stylist and author of The Lazy Goddess, a guide to 'looking amazing and being fabulous at everything'.
Luggage Replica HandbagsHannah, 31, also loves cars. So what does she think of this one? 'It looks great,' she says. 'But there is a problem with it you.' Women may find this car sexy, according to Hannah, but that sexiness vanishes the moment there is a man at the wheel.
'This is not a car for men. It goes back to cavemen basics.
Men are hunter gatherers and a man in one of these would not be a great provider. This is a handbag on wheels. It's definitely a girls-only car.' I invite her to take it for a te
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