Fire Machine!!! (Fiat Coupé in general)

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Product:	Fiat Coupé in general
Date:	03/12/00 (1499 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: High performance, bags of power

Disadvantages: Not much: this car is fast and cool

The revised Fiat Coupe is one of the easiest cars around to drive quickly. The two-litre, in-line five-cylinder engine has a full 25bhp more than the old four-cylinder turbo, yet it’s reported to guzzle less fuel. That’s a fair old hike in performance, especially with the near absence of that frustrating delay in throttle response when you bang your right foot down, known as turbo lag.

The feeling of constant urgency is made all the greater by a power curve flatter than the Black Rock Desert. If you’re lazy and overtake in fourth gear – when in most cars you should be notching down to third – there’s no fuss and the car pulls hard past the slower traffic.

Pretty relaxed engine speeds, matched by a comfortable, but still very taut chassis, make the car really scoot between bends. The steering is quick, allowing you to really pitch the car in, while not being corrupted at all by feeding all those 220 horses through the front wheels. This is thanks to a viscous coupling and an engine management system that craftily limits boost in first and second gears should the wheels start spinning.

Inside too, little has changed over the four-cylinder model, other than the inclusion of a small analogue clock, manual air-conditioning controls and padded armrests – although the body-coloured swathe of metal sweeping across the dash adds a character to the interior that is still shockingly original next to all the current competition. And, if you like the look, but are oddly nervous about the power of the Turbo, there’s also a standard model that still boasts a chunky 132mph top speed.

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