Fiat 500L review

It’s very good in town, that’s for sure. The steering is calm and easy, perfect for city schlepping. There’s even a dead patch around the straight ahead, so you don’t have to keep making tiny corrections. This, of course, means it’s also a bit woolly and unresponsive during keener driving, and this is where the Fiat 500L falls down.

Not literally: despite being a tall thing, Fiat’s kept body roll reasonably well contained, so it doesn’t wallow about so much as, er, change direction slowly and steadily. It’s derived from a version of the Fiat Punto platform, so feels similar to that. Just a bit less enthusiastic. Pity.

The engines are good. The 1.6-litre diesel is very good but in this class, petrol is just as important: the 1.4 is so-so but the MultiAir is pleasingly fine. Not everyone is charmed by the oddball two-cylinder TwinAir it seems, because Fiat's deleted it from the range. But the bigger 1.4 turbo remains, and it's sprightlier than most.