Is an electric Fiat 500 the perfect city car?

foreign [Applause] classic cars and on this week's episode sponsored by surf shark VPN I'm going to be telling you why I think this is the perfect City Car let's get into it firstly I want to give you a little bit of a background on a tour of the car itself now this is a Fiat 500 probably one of the most popular cars that we get converted in the shop and I can't believe we've never done an episode on it Tim that's that's bizarre in it we've had a fair few come through but never well this is probably the best one that we've done I feel because it's a Fiat 500d which is a very early one 1950s and remember it's a d because D for doors it's got suicide doors on it so I really like this uh model so it's 500d I'm not going to show you too much of the actual kit itself that we put in this because we've done an episode on that before click on the linky link above but I'll give you a quick tour around the car and then we're gonna go for a spin now we've got a little bit of a problem because we live in mid Wales and nearest city is how far away Tim 80 miles away 80 miles away it's a good two hours to Cardiff so we're miles away from a city so we're going to use the next best thing in our local town but before we do I want to show you what's in the front and what's in the back so let's get into that so in the front of this little baby we have one third of our battery pack and that's down here where the old spare wheel and 12 volt batteries to go which means that it's actually ended up with more luggage space now it's electric compared to when it's petrol because when it was petrol you had a stinky old petrol tank in here as well so any shopping or whatever that you put in there used to quite often come out stink in the fuel anyway so we've ended up with more luggage space we have done one longer range Fiat 500 where we put a battery pack in here as well but we stopped doing that because well two reasons really it takes up a lot of luggage space and secondly it makes the car a little bit too heavy for my liking so we keep it to the 15 kilowatt hour battery pack that it is now with five kilowatt hours in the front and 10 in the back so let's have a look at the rear now in the business end of the Fiat 500 used to sit uh an asthmatic well 15 18 horsepower two-cylinder air cooled engine no more now we've got the rest of the battery packs as 10 kilowatt hours in there five in the front we've got the charger in here and then we've got the motor controller there and some coolant system here underneath is the ac20 hpv's motor and we've attached that by an adapter plate to the original gearbox but it doesn't really use the gears really all you need to do is put it in third and leave it in third and you're good to go so let's have a look inside now this is a left-hand drive car obviously and the last time I was driving a left-hand drive car we were in the US and we had a little bit of a drama over there because my wife wanted to watch the very last episode of a series that she'd been watching on the BBC but it was only available if you were in the UK and we were in the US and that is where surfshark VPN came in because once we downloaded that which was really simple to download and set up on my laptop we were able to change the virtual location on my laptop and watch the final episode before you know the killer if you like had been given away on social media by her friends so she was a happy bunny which made me a happy bunny now because I can use One login for multiple devices I add surfsharkvpn on my mobile phone while I was out there as well and I use that on all the free Wi-Fi's which I'm not being funny they're a gold mine for hackers if you like to get your personal data and I really like the fact that surfsharkvpn has an additional layer of data security because it encrypts all your personal information from your device up to the internet now if you want to benefit from surf shark VPN click on the link in the description and use the promo code electric classic now I've taken the roof down now for two reasons really number one so Tim can fit in it later and number two so you can see the dashboard and the interior because it's lovely in here we've got red carpet red leather seats but the main thing I want to kind of like emphasize in here is the Simplicity of the dashboard why can't we have SIMPLE dashboards like this in modern cars nowadays you know I'm not a fan of touch screen displays and all that rubbish all we've got in here is one dial a speedo that's all you need to know a couple of lights on it if there's a problem and three switches lights windscreen wipers and something else I think this interior lights I can't remember but that's all you need and then we got a little state of charge gauge down here to show you how much charge is left in the battery any car designers or interior car designers take note please this is what we want not complexity in modern cars would you agree Tim oh I think it looks great doesn't it it's nice isn't it right go on I think it's time to see if you fit in the field I'm going to put the roof back up because I want to see if you fit in with the roof up mate all right we swap rolls now so I'm behind the camera so if the camera work is rubbish you know what's happened so Tim's standing by the fit just for a little bit of uh context to uh the size difference here and we're gonna have a bit of a laugh now Tim I want you to try and get in the Fiat 500 please go on now I have continuously been amused by Tim getting into cars over the over the years and let's have a look at the Headroom which had loads of Headroom look at that no problem at all leg room and Headroom perfect there's more room in that I'd say than in some of the lotuses you've been in mate there's more room in this than a Defender than an E-Type Jag it's more room in this than some of the big cars we've we've tested cool well now we know you fit we'll put the roof down and go for a spin foreign get asked how do you drive an electric car with gears and I'll show you first turn it on secondly make sure it's in third gear for instance and then next put your foot down it's as simple as that and if you want to put it in reverse just put it in reverse and Away you go now I've driven the Fiat 500 electric Fiat 500 I should say in London a number of times and what I've noticed is lots of people let you out of Junctions which never normally happens in London it's like you're driving around a ray of sunshine and people have a smile on their face and point to go look at that man it's really nice driving little Fiat 500 especially in electric one around in the city another major reason why I think these cars are perfect cars for the city is they're so nippy I mean not just because it's got electric motor in now and it's got a bit of power enough to it but it's just so small and the steering is just spot on so yeah definitely a massive reason why I think this is a perfect City car is the nippiness of it [Music] I've come off the main road into a little car park now because I want to show people what the Turning circle is like in this car because it is insane and turn a circle is important in the city it's it's almost comical it's like I mean some seller clown car just go around and around in circles wow that is that's a tight Turner Circle turning on a Sixpence I think you call it now another reason why I think this is the perfect City car has nothing to do with the fact it's electric all the fact it's so small and nippy it's the fact it's left-hand drive and I'll explain why now because left hand drive cars for me used to I used to think they're no good because I can't see to overtake which is true in a rural environment like mid Wales but in the city left hand right means you just step onto the pavement and especially with suicide doors it's really practical so left hand drive suicide doors perfect City car right it started raining now so we need to put the roof up and I want to show you how easy this is especially compared to Tim's Lotus Elise that you how long does it normally take to get your roof up 20 minutes 20 minutes like all right let's show you what a a real roof is like to put up mate two seconds oh MV Envy you need to get yourself a real car mate another great feature that makes this such an awesome City car is the Simplicity of how to drive it right just because it's electric you've just got a stop pedal and the gold pedal that's it so in traffic that is a Priceless feature believe me there's no clutch there's no changing gear it's just stop and then go simple so there we go have we convinced you that this is the perfect City car I mean from my side of things it brings a ray of sunshine wherever it goes everybody Smiles at it when it walks out when it drives past and it brings a load of smiles to me when I'm driving it but you know from a car perspective in an urban environment I think this is spot on I mean it's small it's nippy I mean you got no emissions and pollution coming out the tail pipe um The Turning circle is really really tight um what else is that what a trip to run cheap to run left hand drive as well getting that onto the pavement I I never like left-hand drive cars until I drove them in the city I thought ah this is the natural environment the perfect environment for a left-hand drive cars so there you go how we convince you this is the perfect City car comments below what other car is better than this in the city and yes walking is better cycling is better public transport is better in the city but if you really have to have a car I don't think you can beat this one and on that note I hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see on the next one [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Electric Classic Cars

Views: 168,143

Keywords: fiat, cinquecento, fiat 500e

Id: D96RZp7WTCc

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 21 2023