Fiat 500X Abarth Ruled Out Even Though One Prototype Was Built

At one point, the hot crossover had the Alfa Romeo 4C's engine.

2017 Abarth 500X render

Adrian Padeanu

By: Adrian Padeanu

Sep 7, 2018 at 5:46am ET

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Talks of an Abarth-tuned 500X have been going on for nearly four years, with a Fiat official hinting at a hot crossover way back in October 2014. It’s the second half of 2018 and a more potent version of the 500X is nowhere to be found. Fiat did introduce a mild refresh for its tiny crossover just last week, but a hotter derivative was not on the company’s agenda for the model’s mid-cycle refresh. New intel reveals the project has been put on hold indefinitely, according to the Fiat 500X’s product manager.

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In an interview with our Dutch colleagues at AutoRai, Nicolino Paolo admitted that while he believes an Abarth version of the 500X was and still is a good idea, it’s simply not going to happen in the foreseeable future. The business case for such a derivative doesn’t have a leg to stand on, with Paolo mentioning it would be too expensive to develop a performance version and that the potential customer base would be too small to justify the financial efforts.

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That’s certainly sad to hear, especially since one prototype of the Abarth 500X was actually built and tested with three different engines. One of them was the familiar turbocharged 1.4-liter sourced from Abarth’s Fiat 500-based 595 and 695 pocket rockets. In addition, the engineers also managed to squeeze in the larger 1.75-liter unit of the Alfa Romeo 4C where it pumps out a respectable 237 horsepower and 258 pound-feet (350 Newton-meters) of torque.

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Although the chances of seeing an Abarth 500X are slim at the moment, the silver lining is Paolo said a sportier version of the tiny crossover is in the works. It will follow the 500X S-Design and is scheduled to go on sale within the next 12 months.

Source: AutoRai.nl

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