ON JULY 4 2007, 50 years to the day since the launch of the original 500, Fiat will start selling its Nuovo Cinquecento. Like the new Mini and the New Beetle, it is cute, stylish and utterly abandons the design brief of its forebear. Rather than maximising every inch of space between its diminutive wheels, it's actually more cramped than the Fiat Panda on which it is based. Thanks to that shared platform, it's also front-engined and front-wheel drive, which won't matter much to Europe's cafe fashionistas, but has pure Cinquecento fans up in arms.
So where should Michael Schumacher, Jarno Trulli and Jean Alesi – all confessed 500 'bambino' fanatics – turn to find a true modern version of their favourite car? The unlikely answer lies in Japan, where Mitsubishi, a bastion of cutting-edge engineering but conservative designs, has come up with possibly the world's best city car. The Mitsubishi 'i', which goes on sale in Europe three days before the 500, has taken its home market by storm – 38,000 left Japanese showrooms in 2006 and now Mitsubishi is looking to capitalise on that success overseas. Already available in Hong Kong, Singapore, Brunei and New Zealand, the i is destined for all other right-hand-drive markets with significant urban populations, including Oz.
Like the Fiat 500 of old, the i (which stands for innovation, intelligence and imagination, and plays on the pronunciation of 'Ai', Japanese for love) has its engine tucked between its rear wheels, and a wheel-at-each-corner design. The relatively long wheelbase that this affords leaves plenty of space for occupants, aids ride and handling, but doesn't unduly affect the car's turning circle – without driveshafts up front to cramp their style, the front wheels are free to rotate to extreme angles.
Thanks to a high roofline, four six-footers can ride in comfort (something that can't be said of many so-called executive limousines more than twice the i's size), and doors that open almost perpendicularly mean they can enter and exit without twisting and folding like pieces of origami.
So, space in the passenger compartment, but not so much capacity in the engine. To conform with Japan's Kei-car criteria (see page 107), the i has the same turbocharged 659cc three-cylinder unit as the Smart Fortwo. Thankfully, it's not home to the Smart's ponderous sequential transmission, Mitsubishi having opted for a conventional four-speed auto instead. The little motor knocks out just 47kW, which is four less than the much heavier Toyota Prius, but, perhaps more importantly, produces just 115 grams of carbon dioxide per km – exactly the same as Toyota's leading hybrid. There is no doubt this i makes a lot of sense. Tiny on the outside, but spacious on the inside.
Minuscule ecological footprint, yet reasonable power-to-weight ratio. But how is it to live with, in the real world, competing with other cars on the road? To find out, we proposed a challenge: the i on its home turf of Tokyo's congested streets versus what is widely regarded as the world's most efficient public transport system… Two competitors, Remi and Eri, would leave Mitsubishi's headquarters in downtown Tokyo simultaneously for a set shopping spree around the city. Remi would be using Japan Rail, the Tokyo Metropolitan Subway and an amazing service from her mobile phone that calculates the fastest route between two points at any given time on public transportation. Eri would be driving an i equipped with a navigation system that gives real-time traffic information.
As they set out, Eri was concerned. The Mitsubishi Motors building has a station in its basement, and one of the lines that runs through goes directly to Ginza, their first destination. Traffic was heavy on the threelane road leading to Tokyo's premier shopping district, but Eri was able to capitalise on the i's slender waistline to squeeze down the inside lane between illegally parked cars. As such, she made it to Ginza's Shiseido store in just nine minutes, three more than Remi – but Eri didn't have to climb four flights of stairs out of the subway or walk three blocks to the shop. Round one to the Kei-car, then.
Our second destination was Tokyo's electronics Mecca, Akihabara. Remi's phone told her to take a five-minute walk to a railway station nearby that could get her to Akihabara in six minutes. Meanwhile, the road to Electric Town on Eri's sat-nav screen was flashing red, which had less to do with the amount of neon lining the streets and more with the amount of traffic clogging them. Thankfully, its electronic brain suggested some decent back streets and Eri was able to reach the store first. Score: 2-0.
For our next stop, the roads to Shinjuku looked clear on the screen but, as Eri would have to cross more than three dozen sets of lights, she didn't stand a chance of matching Remi's 14-minute journey. Yet, it took just as long again for Remi to extricate herself from Tokyo's busiest station, orient herself, then find our third store. It was starting to look like a whitewash for private wheels over public. But all roads to fashionable Omotesando street were clogged, and all the sat-nav could suggest was to join the queues and sweat it out. The i's peppy low-down acceleration from red lights made for interesting breaks to the tedium, but there was no escaping the fact that Tokyo's circular Yamanote line would have Remi at her destination well before Eri. Eri, who usually drives a New Beetle, was complimentary about the i, though. "It's a lot roomier than I'd expected, and better put together too," she said. "The leather touches on the steering wheel and dashboard are unusual for a Kei-car. In fact, the whole interior looks very well designed, as opposed to just fitted."
She liked the way it drove too: "I was a bit surprised when I heard that this is rear-engined and rear-wheel drive – my last experience of such a layout was not a particularly happy one when I discovered the meaning of snap oversteer in a Porsche GT3 [Eri is a former Fuji TV F1 reporter and has raced GT cars]. But with such a small motor, I don't suppose that will be much of an issue here." Mitsubishi may have had similar concerns, as the i's 175mm rear tyres are 30mm wider than those up front.
It took 20 minutes longer for Eri to reach the fourth target than Remi, but the damage was done. The fifth and final shop was in Shibuya, a short drive or ride away, but as we climbed back into the i's snug seats, the clocked ticked past 5pm and each crossroad became clogged with pedestrian businessmen beginning their commute home. On arrival at Shibuya's famous 'scramble intersection' Eri and Remi's journey times were nigh-on identical – now it was about the race back to Mitsubishi HQ.
Remi was on the Yamanote line and home in 17 minutes. If the traffic gods were smiling, this was beatable. Eri's most direct route was through the Roppongi district, but the screen was flashing red. Did this mean Roppongi Street was crowded, or the highway above it? Reckoning nobody goes to Roppongi before 6pm, Eri gambled on the latter – and lost.
The road was a nightmare and all the rat runs off to its sides are closed to traffic during rush hour. There was no avoiding the fact that mass transit would win the contest, but Eri could take some solace in the fact that she was sitting in a very comfortable car listening to a surprisingly high quality stereo, rather than squashed between a train door and hundreds of commuters during rush hour.
She was also piloting the ideal city car for the new millennium. A car that is more practical than a Mini, arguably greener than a Prius and smarter than a Smart, and all wrapped up in a design and engineering package that would make the original bambino's father, Dante Giacosa, proud.