Fiat 500X – car review

'It's like the car version of a ginormous ant'

Picture a summer's day, when some ants have stayed their regular size, but a few ants are ginormous, and it makes your senses shimmer as you struggle to figure out which is the normative ant. The Fiat 500X is the car version of that: in SUV terms, very tidy and compact but, compared with a regular Fiat 500, freakishly large, its features bulbous and cartoonish, which makes it bouncy and near-comical when you have it in bright red.

The cabin is lacquered to such a high, primary-coloured sheen that you can practically see your own face in the glove compartment. This is useful if you've ever wondered what you'd look like reflected in a pool of blood; less so when you're trying to concentrate on the road. Otherwise, it's surprisingly roomy, though this is only a surprise if you were expecting a regular Fiat. My worry is that the ubiquity of the 500 makes it hard to adjust to the larger version. Even though it looked classy - a more integrated, intuitive design than SUVs at a similar price point (I'm looking malignantly at the Nissan Duke, again) and a not insignificant engine - it doesn't score any status points.