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Fiat 500C
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Cheap, open-sky fun for four. CARNOUSTIE, SCOTLAND
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lowered, you may as well be towing a horse trailer for as bad as rear visibility is. Speaking of horses, our diesel-powered test car had just 95 of them, but it offered plenty of torque spread over a broad power band. The likely engine for The Specs // our shores—a ON SALE: Early 2011 100-hp, 1.4-liter PRICE: $20,000/$25,000 gasoline four(base in the U.S./as tested in the U.K., est.) cylinder—should ENGINE: 1.3L turbo-diesel earn an EPA I-4, 95 hp, 148 lb-ft (as tested) combined rating DRIVE: Front-wheel of about 30 mpg. The 1.3-liter tturbo-diesel, b di l however, h yielded i an average of 41 mpg over nearly 1200 miles. No Mini Coopers will be threatened by the way a 500 handles in the twisties, but the Fiat is still tossable, fun, and nimble. The 500 rides more comfortably than a Mini, too, and its preserved pillars mean that the body doesn’t feel limp like most four-seat droptops—all of which, we might add, the 500C should undercut in price, promising for a very enticing open-air opportunity when it arrives here in the spring. — Rusty Blackwell
Thanks to the 500C’s atypical top design, occupants can enjoy the open air without being completely on display to other motorists.
HE FIAT 500 COUPE is set to reach the U.S. market
by the tail end of this year, and it will be followed shortly thereafter by the 500C—the convertible version of the subcompact that will reintroduce the Fiat brand to Americans after a twenty-seven-year sabbatical. The 500’s main competition in the U.S. will be the Mini Cooper—both are two-door, four-seat hatchbacks that target “premium” buyers and offer countless configurations, as well as convertible versions—but the Mini is a bit larger all around. The 500C’s soft top is actually more of a glorified full-width canvas sunroof than a chopped-pillar affair. In addition to the fully open position, the roof can be set to almost any spot along its travel, the most useful of which finds the canvas folded above the rear passengers’ heads, leaving the small back window in place and preserving rearward visibility. With the top fully
Aston Martin V8 Vantage N420 N420 on the periodic table.
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SAN FRANCISCO
ITHOUT QUESTION, the most exciting
element on the periodic table is the element of surprise. The Aston Martin V8 Vantage N420 packs a full U.S. RDA–sized dose of the unexpected—a fact that’s even more surprising because this car is entering its sixth model year. You see, the Vantage is among the most elegant and dignified sports cars on the planet, but the sound that comes from the N420’s new sport exhaust is anything but refined. With the violent tone and deafening volume of an unmuffled NASCAR V-8, it’s rude, crude, obscenely loud, and positively glorious. The Specs // A blip of the throttle could—and ON SALE: Now did—cause an acoustically desensitized PRICE: $133,350/ $146,350 (coupe/ race-car mechanic to jump backward convertible) as if a pair of rabid vampire bats had ENGINE: 4.7L V-8, lunged out of the tailpipes. No one 420 hp, 346 lb-ft expects to hear this sound coming from DRIVE: Rear-wheel this car. From behind the wheel, though, the Vantage V t remains i perfectly f civilized. The N420’s sport suspension is very firm but never jarring, and there’s an
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The N420 is differentiated from the regular V8 Vantage by wider sills; a carbon-fiber splitter, fender vents, and diffuser; and ten-spoke aluminum wheels— not to mention its glorious sound.
enormous amount of feedback coming through its perfectly tailored, Alcantara steering wheel. Talkative though that steering rack may be, it’s the N420’s unlikely exhaust note that’s the most communicative part of this Aston, and it’s a not-so-subtle reminder that some elements age better than others. — Jason Cammisa
December 2010 | Automobilemag.com
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