Fiat Stilo

We’re not sure that the rest of the motoring world is quite ready to re-evaluate the Stilo just yet, but we certainly are here at italicar. Ok, we admit that if ever there was a perfect example of how much a couple of extra doors can affect a car’s appearance, the Stilo is it. Where the 3-door Stilo has a purposeful, well proportioned stance even when viewed today, the 5-door is markedly less striking. But, even in the dowdier 5-door dress, it’s still an accomplished drive with some great engines available (we never quite gelled with the 128-derived 1.6, though). We even enjoyed running a JTD Multiwagon ourselves for well north of 200k miles - who said Fiats aren’t reliable?

Fiat Stilo 2.4 20v Abarth

Our fondness for the Stilo may, of course, be based largely on the top-of-the-range Abarth model. But how can any self-respecting petrolhead not fall for a mid-sized family hatchback powered by a 2.4-litre, 20V, 170hp, five-cylinder engine? In a day where even F1 and WRC rally cars depend on forced induction the idea that, not that long ago, Fiat were shoe-horning a massive naturally-aspirated lump like this into a simple Stilo seems ridiculous. And, actually, driving a well-sorted one feels like it too. Although the vast majority were hampered by the maligned Selespeed transmission, there were a handful of manuals sold too. We’ve been lucky enough to hunt out a few of these and they’re definitely worth searching out; awesome, undervalued hot hatches.