Fiat 600 Hybrid Review: Plenty Of Style, A Little Light On Substance

Such is the commonality that’s been achieved among the many Stellantis brands, choosing a small hybrid crossover among them really just amounts to how much you have to spend, and the image you want to project about yourself.

Want to look like a rufty-tufty outdoors type? Get a Jeep Avenger. Want people to think you have a wardrobe full of finely tailored suits? There’s the Alfa Romeo Junior. Fancy blending seamlessly into British suburbia? Say hi to the Vauxhall Mokka. Want people to constantly ask who makes your car? Hello, DS 3.

Then there’s this, the Fiat 600. It’s for people who want to look chic and Mediterranean, who wish they were swanning around a Ligurian piazza, gelato in hand, rather than crawling through central Doncaster on a damp Tuesday.

We’ve already tried both fully electric versions of this little bundle of cutesiness – the regular Fiat (decent) and hotted up Abarth (rather good). This, though, is the hybrid, the one people are most likely to buy at the moment.

That means it gets a tried-and-tested powertrain, a 1.2-litre turbocharged three-cylinder, along with a 48v electric system and a 28bhp electric motor incorporated into its six-speed dual-clutch gearbox. You can get a 99bhp version, but we’ve tried the more powerful one, with 134bhp and 170lb ft.

Truthfully, this isn’t one of the all-time great powertrains, and its weaknesses are particularly apparent in the 600 Hybrid. The petrol engine kicks in and out abruptly – often when you’re sitting at a set of lights – and when it does, it can be noticeably rough and grumbly. Electric-only range is essentially non-existent – you might just be able to shuffle out of a parking space before the engine wakes up.

It does get better as you accelerate, though. As well as delivering an amusingly thrummy soundtrack, the refinement issues become less galling as you rev it out, and in the way little hybrids often do, it has a surprising amount of oomph right throughout the rev range.

It would feel zippier still, if it wasn’t hamstrung by a gearbox that’s often slow to respond to throttle inputs, which becomes especially frustrating at higher speeds. It’s a smooth enough unit when it does swap cogs, though, and hilariously, you can shift yourself with some little paddles, which we’re sure lots of people will do with their small hybrid Fiat.

Around town, the steering’s feather-light and nicely accurate. The tradeoff for this is that when you’re out in the countryside, it’s a bit too light and, and has basically no feel. Combined with the sluggish gearbox and the brakes that struggle to smoothly balance the discs and the e-motor’s modest regen, it’s not a particularly coherent thing to drive quickly.

That’s alright, though, because it’s more of a town car, where the twirly steering and gutsy powertrain make things rather enjoyable. It’s let down, though, by the ride, which on knackered urban roads, pulls the impressive trick of being both a bit too jiggly and slightly too floaty. It’s the only big mark against a car that’s otherwise very happy around town.

Somewhat surprisingly, it punches above its weight on the motorway, too. I had a late night run back from Heathrow to contend with, and figured that this might be its weakness, but no: the 600 Hybrid sits happily and solidly at what I’ll call ‘night time motorway speeds’.

The ride becomes more composed, it’s quiet and comfy enough, and a decent adaptive cruise system (admittedly only available on this top-spec La Prima model) takes a lot of the strain out of things. Wherever you’re driving, it sips fuel, with upwards of 40mpg easily doable even if you’re thrashing it.

Opting for the La Prima – at £28,105, a £3000 increase over the base model – nets you a few extra interior niceties too, including wireless charging, some extra driver assists and heated front seats wrapped in a rather nice eco-leatherette material, with power adjustment for the driver.

Those seats are white with turquoise piping and a repeating ‘Fiat’ motif that makes your eyes go a bit funny if you stare at it for too long. Along with some pleasingly retro touches, they help make the cabin bright, airy and pleasant, doing a decent job of distracting from the fact that a lot of the materials are a bit cheap and tinny. Then again, it’s a small, reasonably affordable Fiat – you can’t really dock it many points for that.

You can for the horrid and often unresponsive button-based gear selection, but then you can give it those points right back for the row of proper physical controls for the heating and ventilation, and then throw even more at it for having a quick shortcut button for the lane-keep and speed limit warning.

When you do have to operate things on the touchscreen, it’s easy enough to navigate, albeit on the smaller side. The digital instrument readout is neat and unfussy, too, giving you everything you need to know and nothing more.

It’s a fairly likeable little car, the 600 Hybrid, its coochie-coo looks helping it stand out in a class full of mediocrity – lots of which it shares plenty of bits with. It’s a solid all-rounder, and does most things decently, as long as you’re not expecting an Abarth-like driving experience from it (that’s what the Abarth’s for, funnily enough).

It has price on its side: starting at £25,105, it handily undercuts all its hybrid Stellantis siblings bar the Citroen C4. It’s only an extra grand to upgrade from the 99bhp version to 134bhp, too, something we’d recommend.

The thing is, while there’s nothing it does particularly badly, it doesn’t exactly excel anywhere, either. There’ll always be something a bit nicer to drive, a bit more refined, a bit less jiggly around town. If its looks or competitive pricing charm you, then we wouldn’t blame you for going for one. If you’re approaching this hugely populated class of car with a more stuffed wallet and a more objective mindset, though, it wouldn’t hurt to shop around a bit before being swayed by the Fiat’s puppy-dog styling.