On the road: Fiat 500 review: ‘Nipping in and out of traffic, this had it all’

Low emissions, great mileage, responsive steering, but the motorway changes your perspective

You're either born loving a Fiat 500 or you're not; they don't grow on you. Either you find them cute and dinky, or you think they're affected, cupcake saccharine, with charmless, mass-produced vintage effects, and even though you can see the appeal of buying eight in different colours and parking them next to each other - seriously, who does that, apart from Hertz? In the interests of neutrality, I am staying silent on which side I'm on and assuming that everybody belongs to Team Cute.

The exterior has been made slightly more shiny with the addition of lots of chrome, especially at the front, where a silvery grille is shaped like the helmet of a very wide-headed Viking. Personalisation is huge at the moment, in cars and beyond, and you can, if you wish, drop a monkey on a fancy exterior colour (metallic Avantgarde Bordeaux, in my case) and more than that on a leather interior. Now you will have spent over 1,000 telling the world you're nothing like anybody else who has a Fiat.