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Automotive Kuwait Personal Reviews

My Fiat 500 experience

After I posted about the Fiat 500 being available in Kuwait their brand manager contacted me and offered the Fiat 500 to test drive over the weekend. So I picked it up on Thursday and spent the weekend just driving the 500 around.

The car is cute, to me it’s like a Vespa except it has 4 wheels. Everywhere I went people would check it out, kinda like the effect the Mini and VW Beetle had when they were modernized and first launched. The dealer has currently imported one version of the Fiat 500 which is the Lounge model with the 1.4L engine. It’s fully loaded with leather seats, electric sunroof, dual logic semi automatic transmission, automatic climate control, steering wheel controls, fog lights, chrome trimmings and more. It generates only 100hp which I thought would be pretty lifeless but was actually surprised by the performance… for a small 1.4L car.

Friday morning I woke up and headed out to the junkyard to take pictures of the car. I know junkyard? But truthfully it’s one of my favorite places to take pictures since the place has a lot of color. Driving the Fiat 500 on the 6th ring road the car easily managed to keep pace at 120KM/h without a sweat. What I found though is that the car is a lot more fun to drive in more densely populated roads and areas where the Fiat is easy to maneuver and navigate. Finding parking isn’t a problem for the 500, I got to Ruby’s Friday night and found a tiny parking spot where some motorbikes had parked, with a little skilled maneuvering I was able to squeeze the Fiat in and parked alongside the motorbikes. The trunk is pretty small as well with enough room to fit just one large travel bag. But when you fold down the rear sits you end up with a lot more space. I picked up my dad from the airport Friday night and I managed to fit two large bags and one carry-on with still plenty of room to spare. The interior console is also pretty cool, very retro and definitely an eye grabber. Headroom was a slight issue for me, I’m 6’1 and had maybe an inch or two of clearance on top of my head so someone taller than me might have a problem.

For me the car would make a lot of sense back in Lebanon, the low gas consumption and the small size would make a perfect day to day car. I could easily imagine myself driving the Fiat 500 to work daily and then using the Toyota FJ on the weekends. In Kuwait on the other hand gas is cheap and unless you’re driving around in Shuwaikh at 1PM you could really drive around in a Hummer H1 and not run into problems. But I guess sometimes when you just need to go on a quick short trip, maybe you need to go down to Hawalli and pick up a new hard drive or pass by Sultan Center in Salmiya on a weekend, I can see the Fiat being very practical in those cases. University students looking for a first car might also be attracted to it. There aren’t that many cars in the Fiat’s price range which have a personality of it’s own.

The Fiat dealership is launching sometime at the end of the month. At first they will just be selling the Fiat 500 but they will also be bringing in other Fiat models as well. The Fiat 500 is selling for KD6,500 which is similar to the UK prices. They’re also going to be bringing in a model without a sunroof which should cost around KD6,000. Now the #1 question I was asked by my friends about the car is if the dealer will be bringing the turbo charged Abarth models. Well according to the brand manager they are currently in talks with Abarth and they’re hoping to open the first Abarth dealership in the region here in Kuwait. So that’s good news for people waiting for the Abarth model. If you have any questions about the car you can ask me in the comments below and I’ll try to answer it.

33 replies on “My Fiat 500 experience”

All i can see that it looks way smaller than the Mini, which will help manoeuvrings on 5th and 4th ring road, i would specify the rush hour, but recently the roads became so crazy it’ll be good to drive all day.

LOL… I’ll give you credit, you did well to squeeze out anything positive at all (shopping in Sultan and a Turbo model were hilarious additions)

Tell us what you’re really thinking Mark!

Small, expensive and a bit gay looking?

AJ: It wasn’t that hard to squeeze out positives, the car is really fun to drive. Regarding price it’s not expensive. As I said it costs only KD6,500. There aren’t that many new cars (if any) for that price or less that are as funky.

LMAO AJ yeah a fully grown man should not be caught dead actually commuting in these death toys in kuwait. Maybe fun to zip around in the chalets or something, like a really fast golf cart lol or do an engine swap and drag it in subhan to make all the 3agad eat their dishdashas hehehe

I was also at Ruby’s on Friday night and I did see this car parked outside (never knew it was you) but soon went out to give my friend directions to the restaurant and since by that time you were gone I had him park his car at the same spot 🙂

What car did you friend have and was the white porsche still there? The white porsche parked after me and had pratically blocked my way out, I barely was able to squeeze out of the spot.

White Porsche left after a while. My friend had a Toyota Prado and it took him ages to squeeze into that corner and still leave some space for the bikes to move out. By the way, I always keep surprising my friend’s and family with new restaurants and place to go to Thanks to your blog 🙂

I wonder why the smaller the car, the costlier the price tag?
The car looks fun though, which will fade out by the end of week2 and by the end of year 1, you will be car shopping again.

The junkyards are off the 6th ring road. You drive past agility (agility would be on your right) and you keep going and going. I think you take the second bridge after the olympic shooting club. if its not the second bridge its the third. If you do pass the bridge you will easily spot the junkyards on your left hand side.

nice little car – my grandma had one way way back in the day – she used to say she ‘wore’ it more than ‘drove’ it.

On Top Gear, when Jeremy asked Michael Schumacher what car he drive at home he replied a Fiat 500. Check out the ‘Michael Schumacher is Stig ‘ episode.

This is to all those ppl that think this car is gay.

hi wellcom all to our Group @ Facebook:
( Alfa Romeo Kuwait )

also you can find what you need from the new alfa romeo and fiat.

about the fiat its amaizing car 🙂
Good luck fiat welcom back to kuwait.

Reagrds

Nice choice with the location, i always thought the best place for car photos was beside the hardrock pyramid with kuwait city in the background. But this is better i guess (only for certain cars though)

And btw, the directions are right, but im assuming people would find it confusing to count bridges ot exits and stuff. Heres an easy way: while on the 6th, after passing agility, count the KM numbers on the middle of the highway and take the first exit after the number 34. After that, you need to take a u-turn on the roundabout so that you would be heading towards the otherside of the bridge.
Hope it helps

I just drove a black 2010 Fiat 500 which is for sale. I am pretty amazed with the headroom and legroom. I am 6’6 and I was very much comfortable driving it. The exhaust note of the car is really good an the vehicle had done very less mileage. I wish I could buy it for myself…

How is the car acceleration , is it acceptable ? and does the AC affect it when u turn it on ?

Im looking for the dealers number, can u helP me out? I actually want to test drive it since I might get one when I move :/

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