The Tiny Fiat 500 Abarth Has A Shockingly Huge Turning Radius

At only 12 feet long, the 2012 Fiat 500 Abarth was a tiny machine, well over a foot shorter than a Honda Fit, VW Beetle, or Ford Fiesta. And yet, its turning radius is larger than that not only all three of those cars, but also than that of some three-row SUVs.

This is a fairly random blog, I’ll admit, but this weekend I hung out with Autopian contributor Carlos Ferrerra, a designer who studied at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, the alma mater of car-design GOATS. He showed up to my new house to help me build a shed, and his transportation was a 2014 Fiat 500 Abarth, a vehicle that I’ve driven many times, and that comes from the factory without a muffler.

It sounds awesome, it handles great, and the little 1.4-liter turbo puts out 160 horsepower, which is a ton for a 2,500 pound car. Everyone loves the 500 Abarth, and to me — as a relatively new resident of Los Angeles — I’ve admired it as a great city car that’s efficient, easy to park, and easy to maneuver. Except that last point isn’t actually true, as Carlos taught me this weekend.

The regular Fiat 500, shown above, has a steering diameter/turning circle of 30.6 feet, which is fantastic. That’s almost two feet smaller than that of the BMW i3, whose turning circle is notoriously tiny thanks to the car’s small size and super skinny front tires. It’s also almost five feet smaller than that of a Mini Cooper.  It’s a fantastically maneuverable car, and extremely easy to park. Seriously, as a city vehicle, there weren’t many cars that were better than the 2012 to 2019 Fiat 500.

But it turns out that the hot-hatch version of the Fiat 500, the Abarth — the one that we gearheads love thanks to its power, handling, and fantastic five-speed manual transmission, and the one we remember from that Catrinel Menghia Commercial (see Jason Torchinsky in the video below) — hugely compromises that nimbleness.

The Fiat 500 Abarth’s turning circle is a ridiculous 37.6 feet. Thirty seven point six! That’s over seven feet larger than that of the standard Fiat 500!

To put that into context, the three-row Toyota Highlander has a 1.2-inch smaller turning radius than the Fiat 500 Abarth:

And the huge three-row Honda Pilot Trailsport’s turning radius is pretty much the same as the 4.5-foot-shorter Fiat 500’s:

You’re probably wondering why the Fiat 500 Abarth shares the nimbleness of a cargo ship, and your’e not the only one. Google Fiat 500 Abarth turning radius, and you’ll see plenty of complaints from owners:

Let’s click on that last one, which is from a San Franciscan who is hellbent on reducing their 500 Abarth’s huge turning radius. From that post:

I drive in San Francisco for a living. Tight turns are why you see the pop literally every two blocks in this city (I am not joking, don’t play slug bug with Fiats in SF). I want the same on my abarth. If I swap to the pop steering rack, what issues am I likely to encounter? Which other parts are going to need to be modified? I’d like to get an idea of how much it will cost me to safely and effectively decrease the turning radius without damaging myself nor the vehicle. Is it just a matter of clearance, or safety/reliability? I won’t be taking this to the track any time soon. Any good starting points?

Also, apparently it’s built this way to prevent torque steer? Any way to decrease turning radius while also keeping the improvements in torque steer?

In that forum, there are lots of discussions about potential pitfalls of simply swapping over a steering rack from a standard Fiat 500. Some folks say the remote-mounted intercoolers for the turbo — intercoolers that are located on the corners of the car — restrict the motion of the front wheels. Others note that the Fiat 500 Turbo shares those intercoolers, but maintains the tight steering radius of the non-Abarth:

Just to clarify…you do not need a FMIC to shorten the turning radius. The 500 turbo has the same turning radius as the older Pops and they have the same side intercoolers as the Abarth. The difference is in the half shaft design. The Abarth uses a stiffer different design passenger side CV axle that restricts the wheels side to side movement. Perhaps, don’t quote me on this, it might be as easy as switching to the turbo models regular half shaft but that’s assuming the tie rods are the same between cars. If they aren’t, then you’d need to switch out the whole steering rack and the half shaft, which seems prohibitively expensive.

Just FYI – the current president of the local Fiat America club replaced the steering rack in their Abarth with one from a Sport (which is the same for Lounge and Pop I believe). They have stock Fiat rims, don’t recall if 16 or 17 -but the car now has the non-Abarth turning circle at the very small cost of slightly more turns lock-to-lock.

I can offer a guess why – these folks live not too far from me. Sometimes, in tight parking lots or some smaller roads, turning around or backing up is surprisingly tedious with the stock turning radius. The parking garage of my old office location was down right diabolical when trying to get into parking spaces because you couldn’t round the corner and turn into a spot in 1 go. Odd to think of such a small car with such truck like behavior at low speed 

I toyed with the idea but I’m too cheap  also I’m using the 500e for most commuting misery and it has a nice tight turning radius like the non-Abarth 500s so no need for me there.

As for the Abarth steering at speed, my car has only really had 1 high speed track day. For a tiny car, some high speed sweeper turns can be ‘exciting’ – I’m guessing the quicker steering response is supposed to be noticeably better but honestly if you aren’t racing I wonder how much it makes a difference. Comparing my old 500 Pop with the Abarth on back roads, the difference in steering lock-to-lock was never something I really noticed. More power, different thing entirely 

An Abarth in autocross, perhaps that is where it might be most noticeable/advantageous