Car Reviews 2026 Fiat Bravo
Memories of the Fiat Stilo are now very dim indeed. Fiat thought that if it built a car benchmarked as closely to the VW Golf as possible it would sell plenty of cars, but the Italian company forgot one thing. People don’t buy Italian cars for their ability to emulate a Golf – they buy an Italian car because it’s beautiful and drives like it’s a rocket powered roller-skate. And that’s what has happened in this new generation of Fiats. It started with the Punto, with its mini-Maserati looks, and has now spread to the larger Bravo. This is a car that just couldn’t be improved styling wise. Even the old style Fiat badge that would look kitsch on anything else fits right in with the car. The Bravo in New Zealand comes as either an NZ$36,990 110kW 1.4 litre petrol turbo, or there is the model reviewed here, the NZ$39,990 110kW 1.9 litre turbo diesel. Given the way that fuel prices are rising it’s a good idea to consider the diesel anyway, but the sheer 305Nm of mid range punch of this car should be more than enough to have buyers signing on the dotted line. Fiat claims a 0-100km/h time of 9.0 seconds, but that seems pessimistic. The car looks great on the outside and there’s plenty of high quality trim on the inside, but it wouldn’t be a Fiat without some typical Italian touches. The USB mount for the Windows Mobile system sits on a slight angle and the trim under the radio looks like it opens up to form a storage slot, but either it’s jammed shut or is just a piece of loose trim. The engine is also surprisingly noisy, given that most diesels these days are pretty refined. But given that the author has had plenty of experiences with Fiat in the past, having owned quite a few, these things are par for the course, and by the way has anyone noticed how drop dead beautiful the car is? There’s also the Euro NCAP maximum five star test result, ABS brakes, traction control, dual zone air conditioning, Blue&Me Bluetooth telematics and communications system, and a CD player that can play MP3s and WMA music files. The best part of the system is that all the owner needs to take a library of music along in the car is a portable USB storage device – it doesn’t even need to be an MP3 player – with the songs loaded on it and the system automatically finds and plays the music files. This will be amazing for anyone that has prior experience of Microsoft products. The author was expecting the blue screen of death on the instrument display, rather than the name of the song currently playing. As technology goes, it can’t get much better than this, because there are no fiddly settings or anything – it really is just plug and literally play. Compare that to the Dodge Avenger, which has a hard drive onto which you can store your songs. It’s a long and rather complicated process. Both petrol and diesel Puntos at launch have ‘Sport’ trim, which means good looking alloy wheels, painted brake calipers, and a subtle body kit. It’s easy to be seduced by the new Bravo. It looks good, goes well, and shouldn’t use a hell of a lot of fuel, even if it is noisy while doing so. Comparing it to the outdated Stilo is real chalk and cheese stuff, and it shows just what a car company can do when it realises it doesn’t need to follow the crowd to build a good car. Category:Home › Other • Pomegranates: A newly discovered superfood • Where did the joke why did the chicken cross the road come from and why is it funny? • Can mothers diagnosed with bipolar disorder make good parents? • Spiritual evolution of human consciousness • Tips for getting a college basketball scholarship • Living with Pseudotumor cerebri (PTC) • Caring for the caregiver • Technologys impact on society
