KEY POINTS:
I honestly thought we were going to have a warm, `in the club' Fiat moment. When I pulled up next a near-identical Bravo to mine at the traffic lights, the driver started gesticulating wildly for me to open my window. Like the car?
Yes. Petrol or diesel? Petrol. Yep, mine too. "Man it goes," he explained. "It's terrific when you think it's only a 2.0-litre."
Terrific indeed. The man might have had all the gear, including a brand-new Fiat baseball cap, but he obviously wasn't aware his sporty, fast Bravo T-Jet was actually a 1.4-litre machine. Call it lack of research - or perhaps just a compliment for what's a pretty sprightly family hatch.
The Bravo T-Jet does punch above its weight on performance. As part of a "more-from-less" philosophy that seems to be pervading the European motor industry, the T-Jet takes a small-capacity 1.4-litre motor and applies a number of technologies, such as direct-injection and turbocharging, to produce 2.0-litre levels of performance while still keeping the potential for thrifty and relatively clean running.
The Bravo T-Jet goes fast and looks good. Kiwi-market models come exclusively in Sport specification, which brings dressy alloys, a full spoiler kit, stiffer suspension and some pretty showy cabin trim.
You can't help but love the engine. It's crisp and free-revving, light enough to allow decent cornering agility (the JTD diesel version is somewhat less nimble) and produces numbers where it counts. With 110kW on tap it goes head-to-head with some engines a whole litre larger in capacity, yet still manages 7.1 litres per 100km in the Combined test cycle - up to 20 per cent better than a 2.0-litre engine of similar outputs.
You can even liberate a bit more grunt by pressing a Sport button on the console, which activates an overboost function for the turbocharger and allows you to hit 100km/h from a standstill in just 8.2 seconds.
But for all the genius of the T-Jet motor, the Bravo is not quite as sporty as it looks. The body is highly rigid and the ride is impressive, but the steering is devoid of feel even in Highway mode (there's also a super light City setting for parking) and the handling is bit rickety when you start to throw the car into bumpy corners.
It's not a car that will flow over a typical New Zealand backroad with any finesse. But, for all that, the sprightly performance is still a treat and there's enjoyment to be had from the car on a quick A-to-B trip.
The cabin's bright detailing looks snazzy and the car is fully loaded with every toy you could think of, including Bluetooth cellphone connectivity and dual-zone climate air conditioning.
But there's still a sense of fragility about the cabin and the car is not entirely easy to live with - the driving position is awkward, the instruments are hard to read and some minor functions, such as the trip computer, seem unnecessarily complicated.
The integrated Blue&Me communications system, co-developed with Microsoft, is a brilliant idea that incorporates a USB-stick port so that you can play your own MP3/WMA files direct through the car audio.
But our T-Jet test car refused to recognise any of the file ordering protocols and would only play the songs on the stick in alphabetical order, with no reference to albums or other playlists.
It was obviously a minor glitch, since the same USB stick worked fine in another Bravo, but it doesn't inspire confidence from a brand not known for its robust electronics.
A somewhat uneven combination of talents will probably keep the Bravo at the fringes of the family hatch market, just like the mid-sized Fiat models that came before it. But that's okay. It's still a very likeable, sexy machine. Sometimes it's just good to be different.
- Detours, HoS
