Originally Posted by Shamu

I test drove both cars extensively. A couple times in different environments. To me the Mini Cooper S is way more practical and build quality is much much better. Mini also is much bigger inside. Granted Mini coupe doesn't have back seats but Mini is wider and front leg room is better. Abarth is very crowded inside to point if you are bigger person your up against door panel on one side and rubbing your passenger on other. guess thats cool if you are out with hot looking chic but if you need to give a Bro a ride its less cool. Abarths shifter is awful and feels cheap and vague. Abrths doors have lightweight tin feel when you close them as opposed to german engineered Mini doors.

Also the Abarth has no low end torque. You have to rev the crap out of the car to get it moving. Unlike the Mini which has nice thick power band. In city driving good torque is a must if you want to easily squirt around situations. In Abarth you will need more room to run at things as its really only happy over 3200 rpm while mini has decent amount of grunt from 2000 on up. While on paper the Abarth might be close to Mini in acceleration the way two cars get there is much differnt. And I can say without a doubt Mini will do faster sprint consistently. abarth takes more work to move fast.

And to me Fiat 500 styling makes it look like a clown car. No escaping the fact it's tall and short. Handling wise the fiat feels tippy to me. Have to admit Fiats handling surprised me but it still feels more like a small city car that's been hotrodded rather than well sorted and capable chassis and suspension of the mini. fiat feels short when you go over bumps though. still can't tune out that short wheelbase.

I liked Mini Dealers better too. Went to 3 mini dealers and 2 fiat dealers. Fiat dealers didn't know much about the cars they sold and it was typical dealer customer feeling. Mini dealers knew their product well and one I went to is associated with BMW dealer next store and quality approach was very nice.

This is what ended up in my driveway