FIAT Bravo Review

Fiat's Bravo isn't quite the best thing on the planet when talking about comfort. It has some features that improve driving comfort though, but this doesn't necessarily mean that it manages to beat the other models in its class.

First of all, there's no lumber support for the seats, which is somehow surprising taking into account that we're talking about an 18,000+ Euro car. What we noticed (from the driver's point of view) is that the front seat is somewhat uncomfortable during a longer trip and getting a back pain is only a matter of time.

Both front seats can be adjusted for optimal height, but each of them are only offered with manual controls, meaning either a short lever to set up the height or a small rotating knob for configuring the backseat's position.

Leather seats are only available as an option, just like the lumbar support, which comes as standard exclusively on the top 2.0-liter Sport version.

The interior space is once again a disadvantage, so driving or traveling as a passenger is somewhat complicated, given the fact that a taller person would most likely get his knees stuck under the steering wheel. Things are slightly different at the rear, but the test we've mentioned before proves that traveling as a rear passenger in Fiat's Bravo is only recommended if you're an average-height person.

The 16-inch wheels shoed with 205/55 tires are enough to ensure a decent sporty feeling and comfort, but those who are looking to get even sportier could turn their eyes on the options list and buy the 17-inch wheels with 225/45 tires, which we had on our test car.

Overall, Bravo is an average vehicle in terms of comfort and most of the features you'd expect to see on such an expensive trim - don't forget we're talking about the Dynamic version - are only offered as options.

At first glance, the Bravo seems to be more than a regular 5-door hatchback, mostly thanks to its sporty exterior. The sportiness however continues under the hood, where Fiat installed the Euro 5-compliant 1.6-liter Multijet 16V engine mated to a six-speed manual transmission.

This configuration is more than enough for everyday driving, but it can also face the tougher conditions of a longer drive outside the city. However, we would obviously prefer the DualLogic transmission coupled with cruise control but none of these two were actually available on the car we tested.

The engine develops 120 horsepower at 4,000 rpm plus 300 Nm of torque at 1,500 rpm which should be enough for a regular city hatchback that would occasionally hit the highway.

Official figures, which are more or less different than the ones we achieved in real life, are pointing to a combined fuel consumption of 4.9 l/100km (48 mpg), while emissions go around 129 grams of CO2 per kilometer. The maximum speed is 195 km/h, with the car sprinting from a naught to 100 km/h in 10.5 seconds.

From the technical point of view, the aforementioned configuration seems to be the right choice for the car, albeit some people would choose a smaller displacement engine, especially for even lower fuel consumption. Installing a manual transmission however isn't a bad thing at all since Bravo is especially aimed at the European market. A potential US flavor that could hit GM's domestic market under the close guidance of Chrysler - who's now Fiat's global ally - would most likely be equipped with an automatic unit as standard.

Other technical features include independent MacPherson front suspension, electro-hydraulic power steering ventilated disc brakes on the front and solid disc brakes on the rear.

The audio system supports both audio CDs and MP3s, with controls available on either the center console or on the steering wheel (a separate audio system with amplifier and subwoofer is also offered as an option). However, the big star in this area is the Blue&Me system, a technology developed with the help of Redmond-based software giant Microsoft and also available on the Grande Punto/Punto Evo.

The infotainment system provides an USB port that supports connectivity for any USB flash drive or portable media player, thus allowing the driver to play any media file instead of using the CD drive. Additionally, the system acts like a hands-free service, which means the driver can control most of the in-car features using exclusively voice commands.

Last but not least, there is the EcoDrive feature, a special function of the Blue&Me system that collects driving data on an USB stick that could be later plugged into a PC USB port and analyzed by a specially-developed application. The driver will thus get a series of recommendations regarding the way he drives the car, most of them intended to help him in getting a better fuel consumption rating and reduced emissions.

Since there are no fancy displays, the infotainment system's features basically end here, so no DVD players or navigation functions. The options list is once again the one that lends a hand, as the more-advanced Blue&Me with navigation is sold for several hundred euros.

A nice thing we noticed though is the fact that the trip computer provides several types of information besides the regular details, such as fuel consumption or current time. For example, it shows the current song or radio station, the exterior temperature plus a few recommendations like "Possible ice on road".

As we said, the car lacks important features such as cruise control or ESP but we can still include here the adaptive cornering lights that really increase visibility on curvy roads.

Additionally, we should mention the rearvparking sensors that helped us a lot during our parking maneuvers, especially since rear visibility is reduced to minimum due to the small rear window. Light sensors, rain sensors, xenon headlights and power folding mirrors were missing on the car we tested, but better-equipped versions could get them as either standard or optional.

Since we're talking about one of the most crowded car sectors on the market and competition is extremely fierce in every single category, safety features are playing a key role for each model in discussion.

And Fiat Bravo is quite a well-equipped model when it comes to this particular aspect, as the version we tested was equipped with plenty of features, including ABS with EBD, driver airbag, passenger airbag (deactivation support included), front side airbags and window airbags plus ISOFIX. Additionally, the car employs a so-called "ultra-resistant" body shell (Fiat's very own words), 3-point seatbelts with pre-tensioners and load limiters, and front head rests with anti-whiplash function.

All these features led to a remarkable five-star rating achieved in EuroNCAP's crash test, but only three stars for child occupant production and two stars for pedestrians. EuroNCAP results show that Fiat Bravo reacted pretty well to the frontal impact, but the steering column and ignition barrel still represented a risk of injury to the driver's femurs. As for side impact, the car scored the maximum points, with a single exception: the chest region was the only one to get an "adequate" rating.

As we have already mentioned in the other sections of our testdrive, our car lacked ESP, but we still had ABS and ASR which could prove to be very useful on slippery roads. Still, this 5-door hatch might cause some problems on open road where it is prone to understeering and oversteering when driven hard.

There's no doubt that the Bravo is a nice car to drive. It's quite difficult to find its best feature though, as we can't agree on the one that plays the most important role: the engine or the exterior design.

From the city driving point of view, Bravo could be the best choice for a regular driver who's not looking for too "premium" features, albeit some people might agree that paying so much money for this car isn't quite the best investment. The fuel consumption figures however are somewhere in the average category and, in case you're not the sporty kind of driver, you could get even closer to the official figures provided by Fiat.

As for open road, Bravo is no special model, but thanks to the 1.6-liter Multijet engine, it manages to do a pretty good job. With a 400-liter trunk, Fiat's 5-door hatchback might be suitable for longer trips, but the lack of cruise control and other comfort features is surely a minus.

There are no bad things about the car, other than the lack of features, but most of them are already on the options list with a fairly high price. Still, in the context of such a tough rivalry, Bravo might lose some ground against competitors coming from the German market.