Driving Fiat’s 500X, the Quirky Crossover With a Point to Prove

Having ditched its American lovers back in the 1980s, Fiat is looking to smooth talk us again. The miniature Fiat 500, the reborn version of Europe’s famously adorable Cinquecento, has built a following after a slow start in 2010. Last year gave us the 500L, a creaky, Serbian-built crossover of which the less is said the better.

All the while, Fiat – after swallowing and absorbing Detroit’s Chrysler into the newly constituted Fiat Chrysler Automobiles – has broadcast its American invasion with memorable advertising: Fiats cruising across the ocean floor, fussed over by pouty supermodels, and serenaded by Pit Bull in a beach party music video.

Now, the Fiat-Chrysler marriage produces its first joint offspring, and a genuine test of its chances for lasting success: The 500X.

The mechanical sister of the new Jeep Renegade, with both models built in southern Italy, splashes into one of the fastest-growing automotive segments – subcompact crossovers. You know the ones: Tiny but relatively roomy and tall, on a design spectrum that ranges from cheek-pinching cute (Jeep Renegade) to traditional (Chevrolet Trax, Subaru CrossTrek) to love-it-or-hate-it weird (Nissan Juke, Kia Soul).

More are coming, quickly, including the smartly packaged Honda HR-V and the sure-to-be-sporty Mazda CX-3. With the competition growing fiercer by the minute, Fiat rolled out its 500X in Los Angeles, a key American market for these style-centric yet affordable machines. There, we tooled the Fiat through Beverly Hills, and wound up and over parched canyons for a rendezvous in Malibu – and a chance to mull the Fiat’s appeal. 

Like its Renegade counterpart, the Fiat is a real charmer in the style department, though in a more city-sophisticated way than the outdoorsy Jeep. A snub nose, double rounded headlamps and smiley-face trapezoidal grille make a winning introduction. Uplevel Trekking versions add a jutting front chin fascia and black lower-body cladding for a mild masculine edge.

The useful, handsome interior brings its own Italian pizazz – with marked gains in design, comfort, features and fit-and-finish over the 500L model. A body-colored instrument panel pays homage to the Cinquecentos of old, with newness in the form of a 3.5-inch TFT driver’s cluster. A smart hand-me-down comes from Chrysler’s blessedly logical and easy-to-use UConnect radio and infotainment system, available with navigation, Bluetooth and connectivity services including traffic, weather, fuel prices and movie listings.

Crossovers this small need to make a case for reasonable utility, and the Fiat obliges with features including a fold-forward front passenger seat and dual gloveboxes. There’s 18.5 cubic feet of space behind rear seats, on par with the Chevy Trax and Kia Soul and far more than the Juke.  Dropping those split 60/40 chairs opens up a class-best 50.8 cubes of storage, a bit more than even the roomy Trax.

All good so far, as is the competitive pricing: $20,000 to start for the basic Pop version, which alone offers a six-speed manual transmission and a turbocharged, 1.4-liter four with 160 horsepower and 184 lb.-ft. of torque. Pop buyers can also opt for Fiat Chrysler’s familiar Tiger Shark 2.4-liter turbo four with 180 horses and 175 pound-feet, mated to the nine-speed automatic transmission shared with the Jeep Cherokee, Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200. All-wheel-drive is available on every model save the Pop; with a fully disconnecting rear axle, the AWD Fiats save fuel by operating strictly in front-drive mode until they lose traction, at which point power transfers to rear wheels.

Moving up, the 500X Easy edition starts at $22,300, with the Trekking at $23,100 and the Lounge at $24,850. Topping the pasta head is the Trekking Plus at $27,100, with a fully stuffed version rising to about $32,500. Among several features, that Trekking Plus model gets leather seats in either black or tobacco brown.

So the 500X is stylish and practical – but this crossover could stand more spunk in the performance department.

As in the Dodge Dart or Chrysler 200, the Tiger Shark engine makes its presence felt, but not in the way you’d prefer: It’s whiny, coarse and straining compared with the smoother four-cylinders in the segment. There’s decent acceleration to be found, but it’s not always pleasurable to do so. And while Fiat Chrysler engineers tossed the word “sporty” around like so much antipasto, there’s nothing really sporty about the way the 500X drives.

Chrysler’s nine-speed transmission still hunts gears like a lazy bloodhound, hesitating for a few oozing, maddening beats before finally settling on the right speed. And “Roly Poly” is the best description of the handling.  Snaking through the coils of Mulholland Drive, the Fiat’s body leans and lolls, forcing regular steering corrections to maintain the proper path. Initial bump control could also stand some improvement. The Jeep version has near-identical dynamic issues, but gets more of a pass because of its off-road credentials.

The Fiat’s three-mode Dynamic Selector console switch can add weight to the steering, goose the accelerator’s sensitivity and urge the transmission to stay in lower gears to boost response. But in a mainstream conveyance like this, the switch becomes a superfluous gimmick, with the Sport mode actually exacerbating the hectic nature of the engine and transmission. One consolation is that the 500X’s structure, composed of 70 percent high-strength steel, feels solid and quake-free. But let’s keep fingers crossed for a high-performance Abarth edition that might well cure some of the 500X’s performance blahs.

In the Fiat’s defense, it’s altogether possible that many crossover buyers will neither notice nor care that the 500X isn’t particularly nimble or engaging: Keep you heart light and your right foot lighter, and the Fiat is a perfectly pleasant cruiser with a Campari splash of Italian color and flair.

Fiat itself says that it has no interest in being a pure mainstreamer like Toyota or Ford; with a quickly sown network of nearly 220 dealers, the brand is already reaping more than 45,000 sales a year in the U.S., with a reasonable long-term view toward roughly 100,000 units. As it did here decades ago, Fiat will play the margins, looking for adventurous types who aren’t interested in the same-old same-old.

If models like the 500X can soothe longstanding skepticism over Fiat quality and reliability, the brand’s winning attributes – European distinction in an affordable, efficient package – could ensure that this Italian immigrant finds a warm embrace in America.