Fiat 600 (2024 –) review

Fiat wants to make its Dolce Vita lifestyle more accessible by introducing the mild hybrid 600 alongside the all-electric 600e. This reduces the starting price by nearly £10,000 making it look reasonable value, particularly as it undercuts its Stellantis stable mates. However, if you upgrade to the higher trim and more powerful engine the price quickly creeps up and for similar money you could buy a hybrid Renault Captur with a better infotainment system. While the 600 Hybrid doesn’t provide the same Benefit In Kind advantages for company car drivers as the 600e, running costs for private buyers should be relatively low based on the solid 50mpg we were getting from our 100-horsepower test car.

In recent years Fiat has moved away from jokes about being an acronym for “Fix It Again Tomorrow” with shared parts from the wider Stellantis group helping to improve its reliability. However, in the 2024 What Car? Reliability Survey it only managed to rank 25th out of a total of 31 manufactures which is rather less encouraging. Fiats do come with a standard three-year manufacturer warranty to give peace of mind, but other brands such as Kia and Hyundai cover you for longer. We only lived with the 600 Hybrid for a week, and while we didn’t encounter any major issues, we were plagued by an intermittent blind spot monitor which on some journeys didn’t work. This was sometimes solved by turning the car off and on again, although on other occasions we needed to deactivate and reactivate the feature in the settings. By this point we had lost faith in the system which rather defeated its purpose.

All 600 Hybrids come with six airbags, driver drowsiness detection, rear parking sensors, lane keeping assistance to keep you in your lane, emergency braking if the car detects a vehicle, cyclist, or pedestrian in your path and ISOFIX points for the front passenger seat and the outer positions in the back. However, you’ll need to step up to the La Prima trim to get parking sensors all round, a reversing camera and adaptive cruise control which can adjust your speed to the car in front and steer the car for you. This trim level also gets blind spot monitoring, which is our favourite safety feature but given our experience with our test car, we’d be tempted to save some cash by sticking with the base model.

Compared to the 500, the 600 has much more space and the rear doors make access to the back seats much easier. However, these doors don’t open to an especially wide angle and rear legroom is tight for adult passengers with the middle seat being especially cramped. There’s a decent amount of space up front though with a large storage compartment between the seats and many will enjoy the slightly elevated driving position. Getting comfy is relatively easy and range-topping 600s even get a powered driver’s seat with lumbar support and a massage function. We also thought the 600 coped well on rough surfaces and over speed bumps. The interior design is very Fiat with the signature rounded driver display and the oval dashboard inserts playing into the retro vibe, but it does feel a little sparse and it’s best not to pay too much attention to the plastics which all look and feel a bit cheap.

The entry-level 600 Hybrid covers the basics but isn’t particularly generous. However, this does help to keep the price down and you do still get the digital driver display and a 10-inch central touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard. Top of the range La Prima models gain features such as built-in sat-nav, wireless phone charging, puddle lights, a powered tailgate, keyless entry, climate control, and heated front seats. We found the infotainment to be fiddly to navigate with lots of scrolling and swiping required to find things like the heated seat and driver assistance setting, but thankfully there are some physical shortcut buttons integrated into the dashboard and the row of toggles to adjust the temperature is also much appreciated. We also like the choice of cheerful paint options to reflect the colours of Italy which are guaranteed to brighten up a grey day.

The 600 Hybrid comes with a 1.2-litre petrol engine which is available with either 100 or 136 horsepower. Both are mild hybrid, using a small battery to aid efficiency rather than for any all-electric driving. We tried the lower powered version which was perfectly adequate for joining motorways without a problem and the little engine made a surprisingly eager growl. However, the power delivery could be a bit jerky, as the gearbox was slow to drop a gear when you put your foot down at higher speeds. Around town the 600’s regenerative braking was noticeably strong compared to other mild hybrids we’ve driven, which helped to improve fuel economy in start/stop traffic but did take some time to get used to, and the light steering helped to make it very manoeuvrable, easy to park .