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Fiat’s Seicento Sporting is a fast car that isn’t really that fast. No matter: it’s lots of fun, as Duncan Moore finds out.

Sporting by name, sporting by nature? Well Fiat’s fastest baby, the Seicento Sporting, certainly looks the part. It’s all there: spoilers, side skirts, 14-inch alloy wheels with low profile tires and even a dash top-mounted tacho.

As with the Cinquecento Sporting before it, the Seicento Sporting’s deep front spoiler and bumpers along with side skirts and door mirrors are all colour keyed to match the rest of the bodywork. One change, which can be viewed as either good or bad depending on your point of view, is the loss of the bright red seat belts. The racecar harness ‘look’ they mimicked was a memorable feature of the old car.

One thing that’s still the same however: the diminutive 1.1-litre "FIRE" engine can still only push the car up to a top speed of 93mph. As for the 0 to 60 time, well if you must know, it’s a yawn inducing 13.8 seconds. So how come this car is such good fun to drive? How does a car with these statistics set a motoring journalist’s pulse racing?

The TV ads that accompanied the launch of the car suggested that it would take you back to your youth, playing Slade’s ‘Cum on Feel The Noiz’ in the background over images of schoolchildren in the ‘70s. Well it certainly brought out the boy racer in me – though that could equally be down to the dash-mounted tacho.

Here is a car that, on paper at least, should only be one step in front of a supermarket shopping trolley. Yet once you settle into the deeply contoured, if a little slim, driver’s seat and grasp the chunky little steering wheel, something very strange happens. Even the most staid of drivers are gripped with a sudden sense of enthusiasm. In its basic guise the Seicento may well be a car designed originally for shopping trips and school runs, but in Sporting form, it becomes a real pocket rocket.

It’s all living proof that true performance doesn’t really have much to do with speed. Rather, it’s about two things: handling and ability. To put it another way, the dynamic response of the car when you apply the throttle and the manner in which it transmits the power onto the tarmac.

In the £7,525 Seicento Sporting, you feel that every inch of the engine’s cubic capacity is being used to its ultimate. As importantly, unlike many small performance cars, you never feel that the car is in danger of being swamped by the power of its engine.

Even if you’re not a car connoisseur, you’ll find yourself wanting to get behind the wheel because the trim is so tactile. There’s not a straight edge in sight. Just gracefully curving fake carbon fibre – for that real racecar look.

The dash is wonderfully clutter free – all you need is there: speedo, petrol gauge and clock, just so that you know when it’s time to stop having fun and behave like a grown-up again. The dials themselves deserve a special mention. During the day they have plain, white race style faces, but after, the figures glow red against a steel grey background – spooky.

Even the controls beg to be touched. Big, chunky easy to locate knobs control the heater and even the door mirror adjusters simply ooze style. The long, sweeping handles are the kind of thing only Italians would take so much pride in designing. They certainly put the more usual stubby little efforts to shame.

There are shortcomings, however. As I mentioned earlier, this is a car designed for school runs and you wouldn’t want to try and squeeze anyone larger than a small schoolchild into the space offered in the rear. But then again, this car’s so much fun you’ll not want to spoil the good times by taking the family for a drive in it.

What space there is, however, is put to good use. The back of the rear seat feature a pair of over-sized elastic bands which neatly hold the sunroof cover when it’s not in place in the headlining. Both doors have cavernous pockets, which will be instantly familiar to anyone who has ever owned a Mini. Then there’s all the space around the dash, thanks to the lack of instruments. You’ll need that space for all your Slade CDs which you’ll doubtless be playing on the excellent Pioneer stereo.

To truly enjoy this little Italian, don’t bother reading the performance figures; just jump in and throw the car into some nice twisty roads. I guarantee you’ll end up with a smile on your face. My only criticism? Fiat wouldn’t let me keep the car.

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