In this video, Matt Davis, Head of Product Marketing and Jason Stoicevich, Head of Fiat Brand for North America, give an overview on some of the features and rational behind the new 2015 Fiat 500 Abarth Automatic. The new car is scheduled to hit Fiat Studios by the end of summer and sporst revised interior features, a new digital instrument cluster and automatic transmission option. Davis answers purists concerns about the driving dynamics of the car, while Stoicevich explains that 50 percent of the sales that come from the Fiat 500 Abarth competitors are equipped with an automatic transmission. Fiat 500 Abarth sales have been up 16 percent over last year and the new automatic transmission option is expected to give a nice bump to sales.
Performance of the Fiat 500 Abarth Automatic is said to be on par with the manual transmission equipped car - with 0 - 60 mph acceleration only being slower by .2 seconds. Extra care has been taken to guarantee the 500 Abarth's sporting driving experience is retained. Pressing the dash mounted Sport button switch activates more aggressive transmission settings such as throttle-blipping, rev-matching downshifts, and allows the gears to be held longer when accelerating out of corners and when getting off the gas. Fuel-cut upshifts smooth out drivetrain shock, and the transmission downshifts when getting hard on the brakes to assist stopping performance and to ensure the car is in an appropriate gear to accelerate again. Upshifts at full-throttle can occur in as little as 150-200 milliseconds!
Fuel economy for the 500 Abarth Automatic is EPA rated to get 24 mpg in the city and 32 mpg on the highway for a combined average of 27 mpg. This is just slightly less than the manual transmission's 28 mpg city, 34 mpg highway and 31 mpg combined average figures.
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