2025 Fiat 500 Hybrid Torino

The petrol 500 is back, and it borrows the electric car's best angles

This is a genius little car. It is everything we love: small, nippy, beautifully styled, and yes, still available with a manual gearbox. It also keeps a full set of physical buttons, on the centre console, for the air conditioning and on the steering wheel, which already makes it feel like a throwback in the best way. And from the outside, the petrol 500 essentially borrows all of its styling from the all-electric Fiat 500e, which is no bad thing at all.

Design: pure 500e, minus the plug

There is no awkward petrol-specific restyle here. The Hybrid takes its look wholesale from the 500e, so you get the same clean, modern take on the timeless 500 shape, now wearing the exclusive Torino badge. At just 3.63 metres long it is properly tiny, which is a big part of the charm and makes it wonderfully easy to place in a city. Keeping the electric car's design rather than inventing a cheaper-looking one is exactly the right call.

Interior: buttons, a manual, and the Torino touches

Inside is where the 500 quietly wins you over. Real physical controls survive everywhere, and there is a proper manual gearbox, both increasingly rare at this price. You also get a 10.25-inch touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay, so your phone connects without a single cable in sight. The Torino trim adds a nice sense of occasion, with houndstooth-patterned seats, extra side bolstering and a big, characterful tachometer front and centre. The 185-litre boot is small, but that is simply the cost of a car this compact and this easy to park. It is charming and easy to use, which is all a city car really needs to be.

Powertrain: the FireFly mild hybrid and a new sixth gear

Power comes from Fiat's FireFly 1.0 mild-hybrid petrol engine, a 999cc three-cylinder making 65 hp and 92 Nm, driving the front wheels through a manual gearbox. It is not quick, 0 to 100 km/h takes 16.2 seconds and top speed is 155 km/h, but this is a city car and never pretends otherwise. The big news is that there are now six gears where the old car made do with five. That matters more than it sounds. The gearbox itself is smooth, the clutch is light, and the only quirk is the mild-hybrid system, which can brake a little abruptly at first. Get used to it and you settle into a lovely, easy flow.

Driving: nippy in town, but you have to work it

In its natural habitat, the city, the 500 is exactly as nippy and fun as it looks, helped by light, direct steering that makes it a joy to thread through traffic. Be honest about the performance, though: with 65 hp and a 16.2-second 0 to 100 km/h, you have to work it. Away from town you find yourself rowing the six-speed manual to keep it in its stride, especially uphill, which is exactly the nostalgic, hands-on driving some of us have been missing. The motorway used to be its weak spot too: with only five gears the old car sat above 4,000 rpm at 120 km/h, and while the new sixth gear takes the edge off that, this was never built for long motorway hauls. Around town, where it belongs, it drives beautifully.

Efficiency: nearly 700 km on a 37-litre tank

The efficiency is genuinely astonishing. Fiat quotes 5.3 litres per 100 km on the WLTP cycle and CO2 of 119 g/km, but the real story is what you can do with it. Despite a tiny 37-litre fuel tank, we covered almost 700 km on a single fill, with consumption barely creeping above 5.0 litres per 100 km, and if you make even a small effort you can drift towards 4.0. Drive it hard and it will climb towards 8, but that misses the point. For a petrol car used as intended, this is superb, and it is a big part of why the 500 makes so much sense as a daily runabout.

Price: cheap in the best way

It is also refreshingly affordable. In Belgium the 500 Hybrid starts at €18,740 before options, and even the plusher Torino trim we drove keeps things reasonable. For this much style, charm and efficiency, that feels like a genuine bargain. Few cars this cheap make you smile as much, or ask so little of your wallet once you own them.

AutoNext Verdict

The petrol Fiat 500 does something rare: it takes everything likeable about a modern city car, small size, sharp looks, real buttons and a manual, and wraps it in one of the prettiest bodies on the road, for very little money. The switch back to combustion might be a step backwards on paper, but in practice it is a joy.

It is not flawless. It is slow, and you have to work the gearbox to make the most of it, the mild-hybrid braking takes acclimatising, and even with the new sixth gear the motorway is not its happy place. But this was never meant to cross continents. It was meant to charm you around town while barely touching its fuel tank, and at that it is close to perfect.

Small, stylish, frugal and genuinely fun, the 500 Hybrid Torino is easy to love and easy to afford. As city cars go, this is one of the very best.