The Upshifts are Decently Quick and the Downshifts aren't Too Bad Either

I honestly don't have too much to complain about, every now and then if you're like mid-throttle on these uh they do tend to feel weird and they're not super smooth but all of these kind of given it more than partial throttle or just no throttle at all it actually is pretty smooth uh shifting and you know it's not the fastest transmission out there to shift gears but it's not doing too bad either. So overall the manual shift mode is okay, honestly I when it comes to automatic transmissions i usually just leave it in drive let it do its thing because uh i just don't think they're that thrilling to use if it's a dual clutch you know you can get a bit more speed out of it or if it's that amazing uh eight-speed zf transmission in the f-type or the aston martin vanquish those are incredible.

Of Course, This is a 30 000 car we're driving in so we're not going to be looking at that kind of equipment now as far as the major changes of this versus the mx-5 this vehicle is slightly longer it's got a slightly larger cargo capacity in the trunk and it's going to be a hair wider and a hair shorter so slightly different dimensions you are still going to have the same wheelbase and the same track both front and rear as far as how they behave though you know this seems to be much more of a cruiser car it's happier in the low rpm whereas the mazda the mx-5 it likes to be thrashed it likes to get it up into those high rpm it likes you to throw it around the corner both of them very easy and predictable to thrash in the corners which i really like when the roads aren't covered in ice and freezing i was actually up on this same road it was totally dry no issues at all and you know sliding around was no problem this thing's super predictable and really easy to drive so i do like that about it these lightweight cars you know that's kind of something that's beautiful about these roadsters uh is just the how tossable they are how friendly they are to drive and they're not cars that there's a ton of and so you know this has a different suspension tuning it's got a different engine.

The Engine in This for Example Having an Iron Block versus the mx-5 having that Aluminum Block part of the reason it's going to have additional weight in here even though it's a smaller engine but you've added the iron block and the turbocharger one of the things i think people are going to want to do with these vehicles obviously is tune them and as far as tuning is concerned it might seem like this would be the obvious choice because it's already turbocharged and all you have to do is crank the boost and you know that might be the answer if you're only looking for a little bit more power out of it um certainly that'd be the cheapest way to go about getting a little bit more performance.

We'll be getting a tune on this upping the boost but that said this 1.4 liter is already cranking out 22 psi which is really high so i'm not sure how much more power you could add safely to this versus the 2 liter and the mazda which is naturally aspirated it's going to have a lot more potential it's going to cost more for you to do it so if you're only looking to do a light tune this would be an easy car to do it but i imagine it's going to get unreliable pretty quick if you start adding a ton of boost because you're already at 22 psi which is really significant.

Overall, I have to say like i love both of these cars i'm glad that both of them exist one of the things that people need to think about is that you know not many people buy roadsters and as a result of that if there aren't many cars sold it gets expensive to make low production numbers and so one of the benefits of the mx-5 and the 124 spiders sharing this platform this chassis on some of the other components is that you can you know you up the volume of how many of these vehicles are sold and as a result you can bring the cost down so you and i we get options uh and the cost goes down so it's a beautiful thing having both of these companies take a different approach on the lightweight roadster.

I think both of them are incredible, i've loved driving this fiat 124 it's an absolute joy super responsive super fun very playful and also a good cruiser i mean this really is a nice vehicle to just kind of cruise around in so i hope you guys have enjoyed the video thank you all so much for watching and if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone and welcome we are in the 2017 fiat 124 spider i'm very excited to be checking out this vehicle and you might be wondering why am i wearing a ski helmet and ski goggles well is it because i'd rather be at the mountain skiing uh partially true but not the actual reason i believe it is illegal to review a convertible with the top up but it's in the 30s outside there's snow all around us as you can see so not ideal conditions for testing a convertible but that's not going to make me give up i can bear the elements and just wear more clothing so this vehicle let's uh start with what's under the hood there is a 1.4 liter turbocharged engine this is pretty much the same engine out of the fiat 500 abarth it's making 160 horsepower at 5500 rpm and 184 pound-feet of torque at just 3200 rpm so you'll notice that's significantly more torque than the mx-5 which makes 148 and it makes it significantly earlier so as a result you get peaked torque very early on uh not super early i mean they're definitely cars which have it before that but a good amount of torque really early above 2500 uh you start to get a nice feeling you get pushed back in your seat so great from that perspective now as far as comparing uh power to weight ratio of this versus the mx-5 this is a bit heavier so it's about uh 2500 pounds versus the mx-5 which is sitting around 23.30 and so there's about 150 pound weight difference as a result even though this has more power a slightly worse power to weight ratio 15.5 pounds per horsepower versus the mx-5 which has about 15 pounds per horsepower now as far as the biggest difference between these two engines really it comes down to the the low end torque that you get in this vehicle so so much more torque on the bottom end you don't have to wring it out like you do in the mx-5 and you can still put good power down so you don't really have to be driving it really hard i'd have a good amount of fun in this whereas the mx-5 it really lives up in those higher rpms and that's where it wants to be this starts to lose its power up at those higher rpms but you're gonna get pushed back in your seat more at the lower rpm in this vehicle than in the mx-5 i think we gotta turn around because of the snow on the road amazing turning radius in this vehicle just 30.8 feet i mean you can see that that's pretty incredible that i could turn around right there in a one-way street going both ways with parking on the sides you can do a complete u-turn you don't actually have to do a three-point uh turn around so that's pretty nice i mean 30.8 feet to turn this vehicle around is all you need which is really nice for parking for maneuvering in cities things like that a great vehicle i love these small cars now as far as the 0 to 60 of this versus the mx-5 this actually is a bit slower as a result of that added weight so even though the mx-5 has less power it does have less weight and so it's hitting 60 in the high fives low sixes versus this is hitting 60 in the high sixes mid sixes if you're doing really well uh so you know about three quarters of a second difference to 60 between the two vehicles i'm not sure on the abarth the abarth may be a bit quicker there are some significant changes we are in the lusso which is kind of the touring uh the luxurious version the abarth of course the all-out sports weapon which i would certainly want to go with it's going to have the manual transmission is what you definitely want you're going to get more aggressive gearing in that than with the automatics you're also going to get a limited slip differential with the abarth which was definitely necessary i've definitely gotten one of these tires to spin going around some corners you can definitely still have some fun with this open differential but an lsd would make it certainly better you've got four additional horsepower in the abarth which is really meaningless and not all that important the cool thing about the abarth is that if you do put it in sport mode instead of getting your peak torque 184 pound-feet at 3200 rpm you get it 700 rpm earlier so at 2500 rpm so that is going to make a significant difference as far as what you feel so they've tuned it to have more torque earlier on which you know the horsepower number isn't going to be all that different because it's a low rpm but you're actually going to notice that difference you are going to be able to feel it so that is pretty cool i'd certainly recommend the manual because you're going to get more aggressive gearing than in the automatic and as a result have quicker acceleration and it's going to feel quicker to drive now as far as the interior in this it is very similar to the mx-5 you even have mazda's infotainment system same leg room same head room there is plenty of leg room uh which is surprising i'm 6'1 and i fit in here just fine i do wish that it did have a telescopic steering wheel that's one of the things that i think they should have in the mx-5 and this uh they don't so it just goes up and down as a result with the manual transmission in the mx-5 uh my left leg would keep hitting the steering wheel as i'd let off the clutch so you know you have space here in the automatic it's not an issue my knees don't touch anything with the manual you do kind of back into it and it would be nicer to bring the steering wheel a little bit closer visibility is fantastic a little narrow with the top up but i've never had any issues driving around town looking out you know to the back to the sides at your blind spot things like that so good visibility in the car i do like that and you know these small cars are just a ton of fun in these corners here as far as the steering is concerned you know it's light it doesn't communicate with you a whole lot but it's really responsive and even the gear ratio of the steering isn't all that low so you do have to turn the wheel a decent amount but the response is there and that's what makes it so fun that's what makes these light vehicles really fun to drive is that you can whip them all over the place and that's one of the things you'll notice when you're when you're turning this real hard is that there is a lot of body roll you can see that right there i mean these cars have pretty soft springs in them uh not a whole lot of anti-roll bar in there and you know some people don't like that some people like a nice flat ride that keeps it really responsive and it communicates with you really well and it's really easy to just kind of get it to do what you want you're not flopping all over the place the real story though with street cars is that softer springs will give you more mechanical grip so even though there's going to be body roll as you can see going around the heavy corner there you're going to have more mechanical grip as a result of softer springs so it's kind of a smart thing for street cars for race cars where you have high downforce you know you're going to want stiffer springs to compensate for that downforce but street cars really don't have down force and as a result you know putting in these soft springs it doesn't make it feel as responsive because it kind of bounces all over the place but it gives it more grip and it makes it more fun in my opinion you know it is also fun to have a stiff car that you can slide around in um so they both have their advantages for sure but you know don't bash on it without knowing that you know it does actually offer you more mechanical grip to have a nice soft setup and you really notice that you know if you're on the throttle really hard or if you're heavy on the brakes you can really see that nose dive down in as a result of those soft springs as far as the throttle i do like this because it actually has a kick down button there at the end of it and a lot of vehicles have that but the difference that i've noticed with this is that when you floor it it won't automatically downshift it'll stay in that gear and so it lets you choose if you want to downshift so if you do want to downshift you tap that at the very end of that steering pedal at the throttle pedal there at the bottom there's a little button and you just tap it in it downshifts for you very simple to do and you know if you don't want that you can leave it right before it so it's easy to control what gear it's in as far as the brakes actually a nice amount of travel to that pedal and good progressive build to the braking force they feel really good i really like it these really light cars um they're just so much fun in these short low speed corners uh just a blast to drive it does have a manual shifting mode perhaps one of the less thrilling features of this car you don't get paddle shifters um the upshifts are decently quick there and the downshifts aren't too bad either i honestly don't have too much to complain every now and then if you're like mid-throttle on these uh they do tend to feel weird and they're not super smooth but all of these kind of given it more than partial throttle or just no throttle at all it actually is pretty smooth uh shifting and you know it's not the fastest transmission out there to shift gears but it's not doing too bad either so overall the manual shift mode is okay honestly i when it comes to automatic transmissions i usually just leave it in drive let it do its thing because uh i just don't think they're that thrilling to use if it's a dual clutch you know you can get a bit more speed out of it or if it's that amazing uh eight-speed zf transmission in the f-type or the aston martin vanquish those are incredible of course this is a 30 000 car we're driving in so we're not going to be looking at that kind of equipment now as far as the major changes of this versus the mx-5 this vehicle is slightly longer it's got a slightly larger cargo capacity in the trunk and it's going to be a hair wider and a hair shorter so slightly different dimensions you are still going to have the same wheelbase and the same track both front and rear as far as how they behave though you know this seems to be much more of a cruiser car it's happier in the low rpm whereas the mazda the mx-5 it likes to be thrashed it likes to get it up into those high rpm it likes you to throw it around the corner both of them very easy and predictable to thrash in the corners which i really like when the roads aren't covered in ice and freezing i was actually up on this same road it was totally dry no issues at all and you know sliding around was no problem this thing's super predictable and really easy to drive so i do like that about it these lightweight cars you know that's kind of something that's beautiful about these roadsters uh is just the how tossable they are how friendly they are to drive and they're not cars that there's a ton of and so you know this has a different suspension tuning it's got a different engine the engine in this for example having an iron block versus the mx-5 having that aluminum block part of the reason it's going to have additional weight in here even though it's a smaller engine but you've added the iron block and the turbocharger one of the things i think people are going to want to do with these vehicles obviously is tune them and as far as tuning is concerned it might seem like this would be the obvious choice because it's already turbocharged and all you have to do is crank the boost and you know that might be the answer if you're only looking for a little bit more power out of it um certainly that'd be the cheapest way to go about getting a little bit more performance we'll be getting a tune on this upping the boost but that said this 1.4 liter is already cranking out 22 psi which is really high so i'm not sure how much more power you could add safely to this versus the 2 liter and the mazda which is naturally aspirated it's going to have a lot more potential it's going to cost more for you to do it so if you're only looking to do a light tune this would be an easy car to do it but i imagine it's going to get unreliable pretty quick if you start adding a ton of boost because you're already at 22 psi which is really significant but overall i have to say like i love both of these cars i'm glad that both of them exist one of the things that people need to think about is that you know not many people buy roadsters and as a result of that if there aren't many cars sold it gets expensive to make low production numbers and so one of the benefits of the mx-5 and the 124 spiders sharing this platform this chassis on some of the other components is that you can you know you up the volume of how many of these vehicles are sold and as a result you can bring the cost down so you and i we get options uh and the cost goes down so it's a beautiful thing having both of these companies take a different approach on the lightweight roadster i think both of them are incredible i've loved driving this fiat 124 it's an absolute joy super responsive super fun very playful and also a good cruiser i mean this really is a nice vehicle to just kind of cruise around in so i hope you guys have enjoyed the video thank you all so much for watching and if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them belowhello everyone and welcome we are in the 2017 fiat 124 spider i'm very excited to be checking out this vehicle and you might be wondering why am i wearing a ski helmet and ski goggles well is it because i'd rather be at the mountain skiing uh partially true but not the actual reason i believe it is illegal to review a convertible with the top up but it's in the 30s outside there's snow all around us as you can see so not ideal conditions for testing a convertible but that's not going to make me give up i can bear the elements and just wear more clothing so this vehicle let's uh start with what's under the hood there is a 1.4 liter turbocharged engine this is pretty much the same engine out of the fiat 500 abarth it's making 160 horsepower at 5500 rpm and 184 pound-feet of torque at just 3200 rpm so you'll notice that's significantly more torque than the mx-5 which makes 148 and it makes it significantly earlier so as a result you get peaked torque very early on uh not super early i mean they're definitely cars which have it before that but a good amount of torque really early above 2500 uh you start to get a nice feeling you get pushed back in your seat so great from that perspective now as far as comparing uh power to weight ratio of this versus the mx-5 this is a bit heavier so it's about uh 2500 pounds versus the mx-5 which is sitting around 23.30 and so there's about 150 pound weight difference as a result even though this has more power a slightly worse power to weight ratio 15.5 pounds per horsepower versus the mx-5 which has about 15 pounds per horsepower now as far as the biggest difference between these two engines really it comes down to the the low end torque that you get in this vehicle so so much more torque on the bottom end you don't have to wring it out like you do in the mx-5 and you can still put good power down so you don't really have to be driving it really hard i'd have a good amount of fun in this whereas the mx-5 it really lives up in those higher rpms and that's where it wants to be this starts to lose its power up at those higher rpms but you're gonna get pushed back in your seat more at the lower rpm in this vehicle than in the mx-5 i think we gotta turn around because of the snow on the road amazing turning radius in this vehicle just 30.8 feet i mean you can see that that's pretty incredible that i could turn around right there in a one-way street going both ways with parking on the sides you can do a complete u-turn you don't actually have to do a three-point uh turn around so that's pretty nice i mean 30.8 feet to turn this vehicle around is all you need which is really nice for parking for maneuvering in cities things like that a great vehicle i love these small cars now as far as the 0 to 60 of this versus the mx-5 this actually is a bit slower as a result of that added weight so even though the mx-5 has less power it does have less weight and so it's hitting 60 in the high fives low sixes versus this is hitting 60 in the high sixes mid sixes if you're doing really well uh so you know about three quarters of a second difference to 60 between the two vehicles i'm not sure on the abarth the abarth may be a bit quicker there are some significant changes we are in the lusso which is kind of the touring uh the luxurious version the abarth of course the all-out sports weapon which i would certainly want to go with it's going to have the manual transmission is what you definitely want you're going to get more aggressive gearing in that than with the automatics you're also going to get a limited slip differential with the abarth which was definitely necessary i've definitely gotten one of these tires to spin going around some corners you can definitely still have some fun with this open differential but an lsd would make it certainly better you've got four additional horsepower in the abarth which is really meaningless and not all that important the cool thing about the abarth is that if you do put it in sport mode instead of getting your peak torque 184 pound-feet at 3200 rpm you get it 700 rpm earlier so at 2500 rpm so that is going to make a significant difference as far as what you feel so they've tuned it to have more torque earlier on which you know the horsepower number isn't going to be all that different because it's a low rpm but you're actually going to notice that difference you are going to be able to feel it so that is pretty cool i'd certainly recommend the manual because you're going to get more aggressive gearing than in the automatic and as a result have quicker acceleration and it's going to feel quicker to drive now as far as the interior in this it is very similar to the mx-5 you even have mazda's infotainment system same leg room same head room there is plenty of leg room uh which is surprising i'm 6'1 and i fit in here just fine i do wish that it did have a telescopic steering wheel that's one of the things that i think they should have in the mx-5 and this uh they don't so it just goes up and down as a result with the manual transmission in the mx-5 uh my left leg would keep hitting the steering wheel as i'd let off the clutch so you know you have space here in the automatic it's not an issue my knees don't touch anything with the manual you do kind of back into it and it would be nicer to bring the steering wheel a little bit closer visibility is fantastic a little narrow with the top up but i've never had any issues driving around town looking out you know to the back to the sides at your blind spot things like that so good visibility in the car i do like that and you know these small cars are just a ton of fun in these corners here as far as the steering is concerned you know it's light it doesn't communicate with you a whole lot but it's really responsive and even the gear ratio of the steering isn't all that low so you do have to turn the wheel a decent amount but the response is there and that's what makes it so fun that's what makes these light vehicles really fun to drive is that you can whip them all over the place and that's one of the things you'll notice when you're when you're turning this real hard is that there is a lot of body roll you can see that right there i mean these cars have pretty soft springs in them uh not a whole lot of anti-roll bar in there and you know some people don't like that some people like a nice flat ride that keeps it really responsive and it communicates with you really well and it's really easy to just kind of get it to do what you want you're not flopping all over the place the real story though with street cars is that softer springs will give you more mechanical grip so even though there's going to be body roll as you can see going around the heavy corner there you're going to have more mechanical grip as a result of softer springs so it's kind of a smart thing for street cars for race cars where you have high downforce you know you're going to want stiffer springs to compensate for that downforce but street cars really don't have down force and as a result you know putting in these soft springs it doesn't make it feel as responsive because it kind of bounces all over the place but it gives it more grip and it makes it more fun in my opinion you know it is also fun to have a stiff car that you can slide around in um so they both have their advantages for sure but you know don't bash on it without knowing that you know it does actually offer you more mechanical grip to have a nice soft setup and you really notice that you know if you're on the throttle really hard or if you're heavy on the brakes you can really see that nose dive down in as a result of those soft springs as far as the throttle i do like this because it actually has a kick down button there at the end of it and a lot of vehicles have that but the difference that i've noticed with this is that when you floor it it won't automatically downshift it'll stay in that gear and so it lets you choose if you want to downshift so if you do want to downshift you tap that at the very end of that steering pedal at the throttle pedal there at the bottom there's a little button and you just tap it in it downshifts for you very simple to do and you know if you don't want that you can leave it right before it so it's easy to control what gear it's in as far as the brakes actually a nice amount of travel to that pedal and good progressive build to the braking force they feel really good i really like it these really light cars um they're just so much fun in these short low speed corners uh just a blast to drive it does have a manual shifting mode perhaps one of the less thrilling features of this car you don't get paddle shifters um the upshifts are decently quick there and the downshifts aren't too bad either i honestly don't have too much to complain every now and then if you're like mid-throttle on these uh they do tend to feel weird and they're not super smooth but all of these kind of given it more than partial throttle or just no throttle at all it actually is pretty smooth uh shifting and you know it's not the fastest transmission out there to shift gears but it's not doing too bad either so overall the manual shift mode is okay honestly i when it comes to automatic transmissions i usually just leave it in drive let it do its thing because uh i just don't think they're that thrilling to use if it's a dual clutch you know you can get a bit more speed out of it or if it's that amazing uh eight-speed zf transmission in the f-type or the aston martin vanquish those are incredible of course this is a 30 000 car we're driving in so we're not going to be looking at that kind of equipment now as far as the major changes of this versus the mx-5 this vehicle is slightly longer it's got a slightly larger cargo capacity in the trunk and it's going to be a hair wider and a hair shorter so slightly different dimensions you are still going to have the same wheelbase and the same track both front and rear as far as how they behave though you know this seems to be much more of a cruiser car it's happier in the low rpm whereas the mazda the mx-5 it likes to be thrashed it likes to get it up into those high rpm it likes you to throw it around the corner both of them very easy and predictable to thrash in the corners which i really like when the roads aren't covered in ice and freezing i was actually up on this same road it was totally dry no issues at all and you know sliding around was no problem this thing's super predictable and really easy to drive so i do like that about it these lightweight cars you know that's kind of something that's beautiful about these roadsters uh is just the how tossable they are how friendly they are to drive and they're not cars that there's a ton of and so you know this has a different suspension tuning it's got a different engine the engine in this for example having an iron block versus the mx-5 having that aluminum block part of the reason it's going to have additional weight in here even though it's a smaller engine but you've added the iron block and the turbocharger one of the things i think people are going to want to do with these vehicles obviously is tune them and as far as tuning is concerned it might seem like this would be the obvious choice because it's already turbocharged and all you have to do is crank the boost and you know that might be the answer if you're only looking for a little bit more power out of it um certainly that'd be the cheapest way to go about getting a little bit more performance we'll be getting a tune on this upping the boost but that said this 1.4 liter is already cranking out 22 psi which is really high so i'm not sure how much more power you could add safely to this versus the 2 liter and the mazda which is naturally aspirated it's going to have a lot more potential it's going to cost more for you to do it so if you're only looking to do a light tune this would be an easy car to do it but i imagine it's going to get unreliable pretty quick if you start adding a ton of boost because you're already at 22 psi which is really significant but overall i have to say like i love both of these cars i'm glad that both of them exist one of the things that people need to think about is that you know not many people buy roadsters and as a result of that if there aren't many cars sold it gets expensive to make low production numbers and so one of the benefits of the mx-5 and the 124 spiders sharing this platform this chassis on some of the other components is that you can you know you up the volume of how many of these vehicles are sold and as a result you can bring the cost down so you and i we get options uh and the cost goes down so it's a beautiful thing having both of these companies take a different approach on the lightweight roadster i think both of them are incredible i've loved driving this fiat 124 it's an absolute joy super responsive super fun very playful and also a good cruiser i mean this really is a nice vehicle to just kind of cruise around in so i hope you guys have enjoyed the video thank you all so much for watching and if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them belowhello everyone and welcome we are in the 2017 fiat 124 spider i'm very excited to be checking out this vehicle and you might be wondering why am i wearing a ski helmet and ski goggles well is it because i'd rather be at the mountain skiing uh partially true but not the actual reason i believe it is illegal to review a convertible with the top up but it's in the 30s outside there's snow all around us as you can see so not ideal conditions for testing a convertible but that's not going to make me give up i can bear the elements and just wear more clothing so this vehicle let's uh start with what's under the hood there is a 1.4 liter turbocharged engine this is pretty much the same engine out of the fiat 500 abarth it's making 160 horsepower at 5500 rpm and 184 pound-feet of torque at just 3200 rpm so you'll notice that's significantly more torque than the mx-5 which makes 148 and it makes it significantly earlier so as a result you get peaked torque very early on uh not super early i mean they're definitely cars which have it before that but a good amount of torque really early above 2500 uh you start to get a nice feeling you get pushed back in your seat so great from that perspective now as far as comparing uh power to weight ratio of this versus the mx-5 this is a bit heavier so it's about uh 2500 pounds versus the mx-5 which is sitting around 23.30 and so there's about 150 pound weight difference as a result even though this has more power a slightly worse power to weight ratio 15.5 pounds per horsepower versus the mx-5 which has about 15 pounds per horsepower now as far as the biggest difference between these two engines really it comes down to the the low end torque that you get in this vehicle so so much more torque on the bottom end you don't have to wring it out like you do in the mx-5 and you can still put good power down so you don't really have to be driving it really hard i'd have a good amount of fun in this whereas the mx-5 it really lives up in those higher rpms and that's where it wants to be this starts to lose its power up at those higher rpms but you're gonna get pushed back in your seat more at the lower rpm in this vehicle than in the mx-5 i think we gotta turn around because of the snow on the road amazing turning radius in this vehicle just 30.8 feet i mean you can see that that's pretty incredible that i could turn around right there in a one-way street going both ways with parking on the sides you can do a complete u-turn you don't actually have to do a three-point uh turn around so that's pretty nice i mean 30.8 feet to turn this vehicle around is all you need which is really nice for parking for maneuvering in cities things like that a great vehicle i love these small cars now as far as the 0 to 60 of this versus the mx-5 this actually is a bit slower as a result of that added weight so even though the mx-5 has less power it does have less weight and so it's hitting 60 in the high fives low sixes versus this is hitting 60 in the high sixes mid sixes if you're doing really well uh so you know about three quarters of a second difference to 60 between the two vehicles i'm not sure on the abarth the abarth may be a bit quicker there are some significant changes we are in the lusso which is kind of the touring uh the luxurious version the abarth of course the all-out sports weapon which i would certainly want to go with it's going to have the manual transmission is what you definitely want you're going to get more aggressive gearing in that than with the automatics you're also going to get a limited slip differential with the abarth which was definitely necessary i've definitely gotten one of these tires to spin going around some corners you can definitely still have some fun with this open differential but an lsd would make it certainly better you've got four additional horsepower in the abarth which is really meaningless and not all that important the cool thing about the abarth is that if you do put it in sport mode instead of getting your peak torque 184 pound-feet at 3200 rpm you get it 700 rpm earlier so at 2500 rpm so that is going to make a significant difference as far as what you feel so they've tuned it to have more torque earlier on which you know the horsepower number isn't going to be all that different because it's a low rpm but you're actually going to notice that difference you are going to be able to feel it so that is pretty cool i'd certainly recommend the manual because you're going to get more aggressive gearing than in the automatic and as a result have quicker acceleration and it's going to feel quicker to drive now as far as the interior in this it is very similar to the mx-5 you even have mazda's infotainment system same leg room same head room there is plenty of leg room uh which is surprising i'm 6'1 and i fit in here just fine i do wish that it did have a telescopic steering wheel that's one of the things that i think they should have in the mx-5 and this uh they don't so it just goes up and down as a result with the manual transmission in the mx-5 uh my left leg would keep hitting the steering wheel as i'd let off the clutch so you know you have space here in the automatic it's not an issue my knees don't touch anything with the manual you do kind of back into it and it would be nicer to bring the steering wheel a little bit closer visibility is fantastic a little narrow with the top up but i've never had any issues driving around town looking out you know to the back to the sides at your blind spot things like that so good visibility in the car i do like that and you know these small cars are just a ton of fun in these corners here as far as the steering is concerned you know it's light it doesn't communicate with you a whole lot but it's really responsive and even the gear ratio of the steering isn't all that low so you do have to turn the wheel a decent amount but the response is there and that's what makes it so fun that's what makes these light vehicles really fun to drive is that you can whip them all over the place and that's one of the things you'll notice when you're when you're turning this real hard is that there is a lot of body roll you can see that right there i mean these cars have pretty soft springs in them uh not a whole lot of anti-roll bar in there and you know some people don't like that some people like a nice flat ride that keeps it really responsive and it communicates with you really well and it's really easy to just kind of get it to do what you want you're not flopping all over the place the real story though with street cars is that softer springs will give you more mechanical grip so even though there's going to be body roll as you can see going around the heavy corner there you're going to have more mechanical grip as a result of softer springs so it's kind of a smart thing for street cars for race cars where you have high downforce you know you're going to want stiffer springs to compensate for that downforce but street cars really don't have down force and as a result you know putting in these soft springs it doesn't make it feel as responsive because it kind of bounces all over the place but it gives it more grip and it makes it more fun in my opinion you know it is also fun to have a stiff car that you can slide around in um so they both have their advantages for sure but you know don't bash on it without knowing that you know it does actually offer you more mechanical grip to have a nice soft setup and you really notice that you know if you're on the throttle really hard or if you're heavy on the brakes you can really see that nose dive down in as a result of those soft springs as far as the throttle i do like this because it actually has a kick down button there at the end of it and a lot of vehicles have that but the difference that i've noticed with this is that when you floor it it won't automatically downshift it'll stay in that gear and so it lets you choose if you want to downshift so if you do want to downshift you tap that at the very end of that steering pedal at the throttle pedal there at the bottom there's a little button and you just tap it in it downshifts for you very simple to do and you know if you don't want that you can leave it right before it so it's easy to control what gear it's in as far as the brakes actually a nice amount of travel to that pedal and good progressive build to the braking force they feel really good i really like it these really light cars um they're just so much fun in these short low speed corners uh just a blast to drive it does have a manual shifting mode perhaps one of the less thrilling features of this car you don't get paddle shifters um the upshifts are decently quick there and the downshifts aren't too bad either i honestly don't have too much to complain every now and then if you're like mid-throttle on these uh they do tend to feel weird and they're not super smooth but all of these kind of given it more than partial throttle or just no throttle at all it actually is pretty smooth uh shifting and you know it's not the fastest transmission out there to shift gears but it's not doing too bad either so overall the manual shift mode is okay honestly i when it comes to automatic transmissions i usually just leave it in drive let it do its thing because uh i just don't think they're that thrilling to use if it's a dual clutch you know you can get a bit more speed out of it or if it's that amazing uh eight-speed zf transmission in the f-type or the aston martin vanquish those are incredible of course this is a 30 000 car we're driving in so we're not going to be looking at that kind of equipment now as far as the major changes of this versus the mx-5 this vehicle is slightly longer it's got a slightly larger cargo capacity in the trunk and it's going to be a hair wider and a hair shorter so slightly different dimensions you are still going to have the same wheelbase and the same track both front and rear as far as how they behave though you know this seems to be much more of a cruiser car it's happier in the low rpm whereas the mazda the mx-5 it likes to be thrashed it likes to get it up into those high rpm it likes you to throw it around the corner both of them very easy and predictable to thrash in the corners which i really like when the roads aren't covered in ice and freezing i was actually up on this same road it was totally dry no issues at all and you know sliding around was no problem this thing's super predictable and really easy to drive so i do like that about it these lightweight cars you know that's kind of something that's beautiful about these roadsters uh is just the how tossable they are how friendly they are to drive and they're not cars that there's a ton of and so you know this has a different suspension tuning it's got a different engine the engine in this for example having an iron block versus the mx-5 having that aluminum block part of the reason it's going to have additional weight in here even though it's a smaller engine but you've added the iron block and the turbocharger one of the things i think people are going to want to do with these vehicles obviously is tune them and as far as tuning is concerned it might seem like this would be the obvious choice because it's already turbocharged and all you have to do is crank the boost and you know that might be the answer if you're only looking for a little bit more power out of it um certainly that'd be the cheapest way to go about getting a little bit more performance we'll be getting a tune on this upping the boost but that said this 1.4 liter is already cranking out 22 psi which is really high so i'm not sure how much more power you could add safely to this versus the 2 liter and the mazda which is naturally aspirated it's going to have a lot more potential it's going to cost more for you to do it so if you're only looking to do a light tune this would be an easy car to do it but i imagine it's going to get unreliable pretty quick if you start adding a ton of boost because you're already at 22 psi which is really significant but overall i have to say like i love both of these cars i'm glad that both of them exist one of the things that people need to think about is that you know not many people buy roadsters and as a result of that if there aren't many cars sold it gets expensive to make low production numbers and so one of the benefits of the mx-5 and the 124 spiders sharing this platform this chassis on some of the other components is that you can you know you up the volume of how many of these vehicles are sold and as a result you can bring the cost down so you and i we get options uh and the cost goes down so it's a beautiful thing having both of these companies take a different approach on the lightweight roadster i think both of them are incredible i've loved driving this fiat 124 it's an absolute joy super responsive super fun very playful and also a good cruiser i mean this really is a nice vehicle to just kind of cruise around in so i hope you guys have enjoyed the video thank you all so much for watching and if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below\n"