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Read my Joker face. Image by Fiat.

Read my Joker face
Fiat has dropped the 'Grande' part of the Punto hatchback and replaced it with the much racier 'Evo' tag. Marketing guff?

   



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| First Drive | Cavour aircraft carrier, Italy | 2010 Fiat Punto Evo |

The name 'Evo' is so synonymous with rally-bred, four-wheel drive hyper cars that to use it for a small Italian hatch is really to encourage feelings of bitter disappointment, or at best casual amusement. What next? The Panda GT-R?

Anyway, that fact is probably not lost on Fiat, but it's ploughed on with the naming strategy regardless in the hope that we'll see this as much more than a Grande Punto with new lights and alloys. The Punto Evo is quite some facelift.

In the Metal

The silhouette of the Grande Punto remains (even though many of the body panels are changed), but the front and rear get a proper cut and pasting. The taillights receive new graphics for easier night-time recognition, the badge becomes a button for the boot (like the Alfa Mito's) and there's central 'Punto Evo' lettering. Around the front there's a Fiat 500-style chrome strip between the headlamps and the bigger grille is separated by a horizontal expanse of plastic, which on lighter colours looks, to us, like The Joker's mouth in Tim Burton's Batman. The added addenda is, in my opinion, a bit of a mess, serving to detract from what was quite a pure and pretty shape. You might disagree, of course.

Inside, the restyle is far more successful. The cabin gets a complete rework, with the Grande Punto's entire dash ditched for a more rakish and higher quality setup that drags the Italian close to the standards set by Ford's Fiesta. It's not quite there, but it's an improvement: even the door cards are changed, and, we hear, the runners for the front seats. There's still too much hard plastic, but the textured central section of the dashboard is nice and tactile, and the oh-so-fashionable gloss black sections surrounding the vents and stereo work a treat.

Noteworthy is Fiat's version of the satnav cradle pioneered by SEAT that gives owners the option of purchasing an aftermarket TomTom and affixing it to the dash in a flush fashion. It's a nice solution that should drive down the frankly outrageous sums charged by makers for optional satnav, as well as, obviously, dispensing with ungainly wires and suction cup marks on windscreens.

What you get for your Money

The right-hand drive car won't start going down the production line until January 2010, and rumour has it Fiat will wait until the scrap scheme ends before selling it in the UK, so final specification isn't set yet. What we do know, however, is that Fiat will continue to sell the Grande Punto alongside the new Evo, probably moving the older car slightly down market by making it the base model. Whether it'll get cheaper we're not sure, but the unorthodox move means that the Evo's entry level will be in the middle of the range, probably starting at around £12,000 and coming with more equipment: alloys, air conditioning, electric windows and seven airbags will likely be standard.

The Evo will be launched with the latest generation of Fiat's Euro V petrol and diesel engines though, which will be its major selling point because, as you'll discover, they're peachy. While we're not sure which engines will remain for the Grande Punto in the UK, the Evo will come with second-generation 1.3-litre MultiJet diesel and new MultiAir petrol engines, the most potent of which is the 135bhp 1.4-litre turbo we spent the majority of our time with at the car's launch. All the new engines come as standard with start-stop technology for the benefit of emissions and consumption.

Driving it

The Evo has had a proper going over, but it hasn't lost the core characteristic of the Grande version, which is to say it's nimble and softly sprung. Turn-in is sharp, but any hope we might have carried that Fiat would dial in more steering feel are unfounded: it's over-light and gives the driver very little by way of feedback. Despite its supple setup, which makes it glide smoothly over most surfaces, the car doesn't roll too much around the corners. That combined with the quick steering rack gives the Evo a nice fleet-footedness, although it's nowhere near as planted, involving or rewarding as the Fiesta.

The 1.4-litre MultiAir Turbo is a lovely engine though. It pings alive from the mid-range, but it has plenty of shove at the depths of the rev counter too so it's not peaky; it feels like it has more torque than its official 132lb.ft figure as well. The 62mph benchmark is done with in just 8.5 seconds, making this the quickest Evo (Fiat-branded, anyway) until the Abarth variant comes along in a year or so. As ever, the Fiat gear change is overly light, but the six-speed 'box slips from ratio to ratio in slick fashion. Plus, the obligatory gear shift indicator helpfully tells you when to change down as well as up for best fuel economy. Economy is impressive too: 50.4mpg with CO2 emissions of 129g/km.

Worth Noting

Fiat spent €220 million (about £203 million) on this facelift, and although it didn't reveal how that money was apportioned (engine development could well have taken a big chunk), it's a fair old whack for what's essentially a mild re-invention.

That said, we wonder whether that includes the Evo's launch budget, in which case we reckon about, oh, £50 million went on the car itself. See, pirate that it is, Fiat thought it appropriate to take over an entire aircraft carrier - and not an abandoned one, but the very latest, newest flagship of the Italian Navy, the Cavour. Started in 2000 and handed to the Navy only two years ago, the Cavour can hold 1,200 crew and 24 aircraft, and can travel at a rocket-like 35mph (rocket-like for a 27,000-tonne boat, that is). And Fiat borrowed it for a week. Phew.

Summary

Has the Punto improved enough to justify Fiat labelling it a new model line? No, in short, but the Evo does mostly add to on the strengths of the Grande - most obviously in the cabin, but most importantly under the bonnet. We're not enamoured by the cosmetic changes, but if Fiat gets the price right, the massage has made the Fiat a worthy contender in the supermini segment once again.

Mark Nichol - 7 Oct 2009



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2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Dave Jenkins.2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Dave Jenkins.2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Dave Jenkins.2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Dave Jenkins.2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Dave Jenkins.

2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Dave Jenkins.2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Dave Jenkins.2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Dave Jenkins.2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Dave Jenkins.2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Dave Jenkins.



2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Fiat.
 

2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Fiat.
 

2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Fiat.
 

2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Fiat.
 

2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Fiat.
 

2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Fiat.
 

2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Fiat.
 

2010 Fiat Punto Evo. Image by Fiat.
 






 

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