Car 24 is a Seicento Sporting Abarth, in a rather familiar Starter Red and an even more familiar format being of course based on the Cinquecento which I had owned for my 21st car. Born out of necessity for an economical car to supplement my Caterham Seven and the need to still have something stylish to drive around in this car fitted the bill perfectly.
Compared to the Cinq the Sei Abarth was nowhere near as frantic to drive, which I partly put down to Fiat trying to make the car as comfortable as possible and thus killing off some of the cabin noise of the Cinq but also the slightly different gearing and 14inch Abarth wheels and tyres made the car much quieter but less responsive at the same time and yet no more economical either. Over the couple of years I owned this car it really cost me nothing at all to run as i could service it myself and even when the radiator went I was able to replace it without too much trouble (even though the Fiat garage in Newbury gave me the wrong rad). Economy wise it would average close to 50 to the gallon if driven gently, it was the perfect companion to my Seven but this became it's undoing as when I sold the Seven I found it a bit flat and boring as an only car. With this in mind I started to look around and eventually bought car 25 before selling this one which brought a new problem as the car would'nt sell at all even with a reduced price, eventually I sold it to my dad who enjoyed buzzing about in it until sadly one afternoon he wrote it off by driving into the back of a van.