The Alfa Romeo 4C engine was once used in the hot crossover.
Talks of an Abarth tuned 500X have been ongoing for almost four years. A Fiat official hinted at a hot cross back in October 2014. It’s now the second half 2018 and there is no 500X with a stronger engine. Fiat did announce a slight refresh of its small crossover last week, but the company didn’t plan to release a more powerful variant for the mid-cycle refresh. According to Fiat 500X’s product manger, new information has revealed that the project was put on hold indefinitely.
Nicolino Paolo, a Dutch colleague at AutoRai admitted that he thinks an Abarth version 500X is a good idea but it’s unlikely to happen in the near future. Paolo stated that it is not feasible to prove the business case for such a derivative. He also mentioned that it would be too costly to create a performance version of the Abarth and that the potential customers would not be sufficient to justify the investment.
It’s a sad fact that one prototype Abarth 500X was built and tested with three engines. One was the turbocharged 1.4-liter engine sourced from Abarth’s Fiat 500-based 595 or 695 pocket rockets. The engineers were also able to fit the larger 1.75-liter unit from the Alfa Romeo 4C, which produces a respectable 237 horsepower (350 Newton-meters of torque) and 258 poundfeet (258 lb-ft).
The chances of an Abarth 500X being made are slim, but Paolo stated that a sportier version is on the horizon. It will be available in the same year as the 500X S-Design.