There has been a lot of bad press recently regarding the fiat 500 being vastly underpowered and struggling to go up hills. The 1.2 litre engines are struggling and only producing 69HP meaning that even in first gear many drivers are logging complaints that the car is not fit for purpose and can make hill starts virtually impossible.

I have driven one of these for a short period and I have to say that even though I didn’t encounter many hills in my journey I did feel that the car was greatly lacking power and at times felt very sluggish. This problem is emphasised the more additional weight is added to the vehicle and is causing buyers to be very disappointed with their purchase.

For a small city run around this car may be sufficient however it will never be much more than that unless fiat manage to add some more power making this car compete with other models in its class.