Fiat Avventura 'Powered by Abarth' review, test drive

Our first impressions of the new Abarth-powered Fiat Avventura.

Published on Oct 30, 2015 12:50:00 PM

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Fiat Avventura 'Powered by Abarth' review, test drive

What's it like to drive?

On the one hand, the new 'Powered by Abarth' edition drives like a regular Avventura. The ride is pretty absorbent, the hydraulic steering has a delicious weight to it and a mere tap on the brakes drops the speed down in a hurry: it has disc brakes all round.

Accelerate out, however, and you soon realise this is no ordinary Avventura. There is a tiny bit of delay at low engine speed when you tap the throttle, due to the turbo taking its time to spin up to speed, and if you want an instant burst of power, you have to drop down to a lower gear. That said, once the engine has passed 2,500rpm, the Avventura turns into a completely different animal. There's an extremely strong surge of performance, and the engine keeps pulling harder and harder till it gets to 6,000rpm. Acceleration is so strong, you are pinned to the back of your seat as soon as you push your right foot down, and what you really enjoy is that the performance keeps coming and coming. This performance is unlike any crossover in its class or, for that matter, in the one above. In fact, engine power is made so consistently, you can get a strong burst of power in almost any gear, which is great for making up big gaps in traffic or overtaking on the highway. Fiat claims a 0-100kph acceleration time of 9.9 seconds, but the car feels much faster than that in the real world due to the easily available power. What you also particularly enjoy, especially if you are a keen driver, is that the Avventura keeps gathering speed aggressively even as it gets up to speeds above 120kph or 140kph. The gearbox, however, isn't very slick; it
takes a bit of effort to slot into the right gear.

What you also don't enjoy much is the fact that the Avventura on its raised suspension doesn't have the grip to put all the power down to the road. So you have to measure and use only as much power as the wheels can handle. This is especially true in first gear, where pushing hard on the throttle causes the front tyres to spin and the car to pull to either side (torque steer). And while the Avventura has a nicely setup suspension that allows it to take corners with great confidence, accelerating out of a hard bend upsets this balance, because again, it can't put the power down cleanly. Still, there's little doubt that this is a fun, fun car.