Ok, so I ended last weeks entry at the point of trading in my beloved Hawkeye WRX for a hothatch due to the birth of my son. (at this point I would like to note that the Mrs was happy to see the scooby go, as she saw it as an unneeded expense at the time, but was not impressed when the baby seat would not fit in the new car...) This week is talking through that daily driver. Those of you who have checked out my
instagram will have already seen that this was for an Abarth Supersport.
When I bought this car it was from new, but at the end of its production run. A couple of weeks later I read an article about this car and how much of a unicorn it was. Apparently there were only ever around 850 Abarth Puntos brought to the UK, and of these only 138 were of the top spec Supersport version, the majority being either the Abarth Grand Punto, or the Abarth Punto Evo. Although I have seen social media peppered with them from time to time, in my area I only know of 1 other Abarth Punto, and thats an Evo.
I love the fact that a lot of people, especially non-car people, don't really know what they are. I have lost track of how many times I've been asked what an Abarth is, and when people finally click, say "so thats like a fast fiat 500, right?" as if Abarth only do 500s and nothing else..... Don't get me wrong, I like the 500 models, I went to the showroom intending to buy a 595 Competizione, but walked away happily with my Supersport instead, its more me, and I like the fact you don't see them as often as the 500 based models.
So what I have is a car which I love, and although its nippy its the slowest car I've ever had. It has a 1.4l t-jet engine which has around 180bhp, which although it isn't much pushes the car to 60 somewhere in the region of 6.5 - 7 seconds. Which given how small the engine is, isn't actually that bad.
Abarth Supersport engine bay.
In fact when I was looking into this car, I read many a reviews and most compared the car to 1 of 3 cars. The Golf GTI, the Civic Type R and the Focus ST. All of the reviewed said the same thing, the car was a great little car but couldn't compete with those 3 of hot hatches on performance. But the Abarth has a smaller engine, and cost significantly SIGNIFICANTLY less. The other 3 cars will all cost you in the region of £30k, maybe just under. More if you want a decent spec. My little gem was under £20k. This means it was being compared against the big guns, when it cost less than the smaller hot hatches on the market, still coming in a few quid shy (couple of g's in fact) of the cost of a Fiesta ST and Corsa VXR with similar performance, and has the same 0-60 as the PUG GTI but costs around £7-8k less!
With Abarth you also get lots of goodies as standard. In fact the parts list on the Abarth would do as a shopping list for the GTO... Each corner sees a set of Brembo's coupled with Koni suspension. The seats are Buckets by Corsa (not the Vauxhall kind...). The dials were designed by Jaeger. The exhaust sound is mean for a 1.4 thanks to a system by Monza coupled with an uprated airbox thanks to BMC (I'll have to post a video of it on a later entry). Not a bad list for a car which is still stock....
I have mentioned the GTO has pop up headlights, a button on the car that makes me a bit giddy. The Abarth has a go faster button, and I've always wanted one of them since I was a kid, lusting after an M3 purely because it had the M button... I've come to realise BMW's are not for me, I indicate and don't tailgate, however the go faster button is still right up my street!
I love talking about the car, I love explaining what an Abarth is to non-car people. I love explaining the bolt-on's that come stock to car people. I do love this car, but I miss the tear your face off acceleration. I miss having power whenever I want it, this car needs you to be in sport mode and in the right rev range or the turbo lag will see you accelerate from 30-60 at the pace of a Dacia Sandero. I miss having AWD and as I mentioned last week, that is what ultimately made me want a project car.....
In the mean time, if you want to keep up to date, follow me on social sites in the links, also more pictures below:
Alloy + Brembo
Corsa Seats
Having a bath
Dat Ass!
