Fiat 500 review - fashion victim or stylish mover? - Interior and tech
Retro charm offensive that’s inoffensive to drive
Interior and Tech
The Fiat 500 might be delightfully old-school on the outside, but inside it’s got all the connectivity options a modern car buyer expects. There’s the Blue&Me streaming audio system that connects with your smartphone, parking sensors, and the option of full leather upholstery. The latest updates have jazzed up the 500's innards further, with painfully fashionable fabric options and even more personalisation options.
Uconnect online information has also joined the range as an option on some models. As standard it puts a 5-inch touchscreen in the centre of the dashboard, that gives you access to radio functions and basic operations on whichever smartphone you've chosen to connect.
On top of that you can specify Uconnect Live, which adds smartphone app functionality, navigation, social media connectivity, real-time traffic updates and online radio.
Beyond this, you can swap the 500's regular concentric analogue instruments with a 7-inch TFT display on some models, which displays all the usual functions digitally, along with trip computer information.
This is a small car that’s able to be specified highly and the level of personalisation incredible. The interior is tight for more than two though; indeed, it’d be cruel and unkind to expect all but the smallest children to sit in the back. Fiat offers the 500L for those looking for a 500 with more space - though no matter what Fiat says we’re totally unconvinced by the looks of it.
If you’re after an even more fun 500 there’s the option of the 500C, which Fiat describes as a convertible, though it’s little more than an extremely long sunroof. The boot - in the rear, where the engine was in the original - is tiny, though nobody really buys a 500 with practicality in mind.
