Fiat 600 review

Are you a glass half full sort of person? Then the plastics inside the 600 have been designed to be hard-wearing to cope with family life. The decor is fun, a mash-up of 500 and Jeep Avenger dashboards, and we love the splash of colour about the place and the fun iPad-style cover on the central part of the dashboard.

There are plenty of places to stow away your bits and pieces, which is useful – the little shelf in the dash turns into a wireless phone charger if you upgrade to the La Prima spec car.

How’s the tech?

The driver's screen sits in a circular pod, but the actual display is jarringly rectangular, with square-edge graphics. The main touchscreen is quick-reacting, neatly populated and usefully configurable. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard, and because there are hard keys for car and climate functions it's easy to flick between the Fiat screens and the phone-mirroring ones and back again.

One touchscreen-related misstep is the heated seats in the La Prima – great to have, but they’re three jabs away on the touchscreen to turn on. You’ll have frozen to death by then.

What’s the space like? 

The 600 is certainly an upgrade on the cramped confines of the 500 – it’s noticeably wider and more spacious up front, it’ll be reasonable for long journeys (although you can’t bring your feet back under the front seats because the battery starts right there) and you can actually get people in the back, which is nice. 

You do sit quite high up in the rear seats, it’s not going to be comfortable for tall people. Then the window line sits very high, so it’s going to be less palatable for children – it feels a bit murky in the back, you can see why carmakers go for panoramic sunroofs to lighten the place up. No such luck here.

Is it practical? 

You get 360 litres of space in the boot – bigger than the likes of the Jeep Avenger or Peugeot e-208, but a lot smaller than the Hyundai Kona Electric. There’s no frunk in the 600e either, so you’ll have to give up some precious room to the cable bag – at least in the top-spec car you get a nifty double floor.