Italian automaker Fiat has reintroduced the 500, the perfect car for Costa Rica. No, this is not a promo piece for Fiat, although we will certainly not say no if the automaker wanted to give us a car just for writing this, it is more of an observation of the newly reborn car on Costa Rican roads.

New Fiat 500

First off, it really looks nice. It’s shiny coat of paint and in awesome colours really makes a presence on the roads that filled mainly of Japanese and Korean cars, with some European cars, mainly French and the odd American models. The new Chevys sold in Costa Rica and many other Latin American countries, in my opinion, do not reflect “American” cars.

The new car was created by Fiat Style centre. And although it has lines from the original 500 and some other similarities, there also a lot of differences. Lets take a look at some of those.

One similarity, the new 500 accepts voice commands just like the old one, save for a major difference. The new 500 uses Blue&ME, a collaboration between Fiat Auto and Microsoft. Without taking your hands off the wheel you can telephone and listen to incoming SMS messages, interpreted on your Bluetooth Blue&Me mobile phone.

Classic or Original Fiat 500

The old 500 also have voice command, where the driver would shout out to anyone who was in front of the car to get out of the way as the brakes failed, or shouting out to your buddies to push a little harder to get it started. But, the best was to give voice commands to two or three other friends on lifting the car to get in or out of a tight parking spot.

The old 500 was built for narrow and winding roads of Italy of the 50’s. In Costa Rica the roads today are similar, with the added bonus of potholes. And that is where the new 500 really shows off, being so small at only 355cm long and 163cm wide, it can easily dodge any pothole.

The “Nuova 500″ (new 500), although sold and marketed under the Italian brand name, is really made in Poland. Poles may be good car makers, but their fame to car making has come in the form of the Panda and second generation Ford Ka. Do you ever see one around?

In keeping with Italian tradition of everything revolving around sex, the new 500 is being marketed with four trim levels: “naked”, “Pop”, “Lounge” and “Sport”. Ok, only one of the trims really has to with sex, I can leave it your imagination for the other three.

Making the new 500 really your own, the Italian automaker gives you a choice of 9 wheel options, 19 decals and 12 body colours, that can come to 500.000 different personalized combinations.

In the old days, the original 500 came in with two options, running or not. If you had one that ran, well you got around. If it didn’t, that is where the voice commands really came in handy.

Where we can start to really see the differences is in what is under the hood.

The original 500 that were built between 1957 and 1975 came with a 479cc, 499cc and 594cc engine, hence the “500″. The engine had only two cylidners and air-cooled. At under 10 feet long this was really a “small car” and can be considered one of the first city cars.

In 2007, 50 years after the launch of the first 500, the car now comes with a choice of 1.200cc, 8 valve and 1.368cc, with 16 valve, engine, the latter available also in turbo and diesel. The new car also comes with a 5 and 6 speed manual or 5 speed “Dualogic” transmission, as compared the original four speed when running or several men pushing when not.

The top speed of the new car is 160 Km/h (99 miles per hour for Americans) with the small engine and 211 Km/h (131 mph) for the bigger engine. The old car ran as fast as you could get it going. Up the hill it was a bit of push, but down hill is where it really showed off its stuff.

As to fuel efficiency, the new car rates 6.4 litres/100 km in city (44 miles per gallon) and 4.3 litres / 100 km in highway (66 miles per gallon) for the small engine, not so much for the bigger engine.

So, this is where the old car really distinguishes itself. It was not important what mileage the car got, it was more important that it got you there. And if fuel efficiency was important, there were always some friends around to push it.

The new 500 has seven airbags in all models, the old only came up to four, the driver and three passengers. The new 500 came with electric aids like ABS brakes, ASR, HBA, and ESP. The old car, came with brakes, a steering wheel and four tires. What else do you need??

Although there are still thousands of the original 500 still around the world. One website specializes in the sale of “Classic Fiat 500’s”, not only for car enthusiasts but also as a gift for the wife or a special birthday present or valentines surprise or an anniversary present? Another website is also promoting a Classic Fiat 500 Wedding Car Hire service in the South East of England.

Whatever the choice, new or old, the Fiat 500 is a great car.

Here is some fiat 500 trivia:

* On April 18, 2005 a 1973 Fiat 500 linked Bari (Italy), to Beijing (China), in a 10,000 mile journey across the whole of Russia. Driven for 100 days by Danielo Elia and Fabrizio Bonserio, the small car was followed along its journey by newspapers and television crew from all over the world. After the long journey Elia wrote a book entitled La bizzarra impresa

* The Fiat 500 was used by Lupin III, the protagonist of the Lupin the 3rd series and movies.

* A side character on the Disney/Pixar film Cars is a 1959 Fiat 500 named ‘Luigi’ who is the mechanic.

* It was crowned sexiest car in the world by Top Gear magazine in June 2006.

* Fiat 500s have one similar component to a Classic Ferrari….the 8 amp fuses!

* The Fiat 500 was named such as it has a 500 cc engine and weighs 500 kilos and to its displacement size.