Fiat Abarth Pulse SUV revealed

The Italian racing and road car maker Abarth which also serves as the performance division for Fiat Automobiles has recently revealed its first-ever SUV – the Abarth Pulse in the South American country of Brazil. Currently, the performance-oriented version of the Fiat Pulse SUV is the only model on offer from the Scorpian badged brand in Brazil. During the announcement of Abarth Pulse, Stellantis which is the owner of Fiat and its high performance brand along with Peugeot, Chrysler, Opel, Citroën, Dodge, Maserati, and others reveleaed its plans for the expansion of Abarth. The Italian-American conglomerate said that Abrath will still remain under Fiat but will now be treated as a separate brand and will get its dedicated dealerships.

The Italian automaker released a few pictures of the upcoming Abarth SUV but not much of the details about the mechanicals of the vehicle were revealed. From the pictures we can spot that the pepped up variant of the Pulse has received an array of exterior design upgrades. These stylistic changes include a black roof with contrasting side mirror caps, front bumper trim, and side decals. The model will be offered in white and black colors as well but the pictures of the gray painted model with red highlights looks equally amazing. On the front end of the Abarth Pulse the brands Scorpion badge replaces the Fiat insignia and rests atop a black mesh grille for an even sportier look. The exterior design of the SUV is completed with a set of sporty 10-spoke 18-inch alloy wheels.

As mentioned earlier, the company has refrained from shedding any light on specifics about the powertrain of the model as of yet. Although we can expect to see a 1.3-liter turbocharged petrol engine with 185 hp in the Abarth Pulse. The same powerplant is found in the Jeep Renegade and in the Pulse it is expected to be mated to a six-speeed automatic transmission.

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In other Abarth news, the company recently also confirmed that a new high-performance Abarth variant of the electric Fiat 500 city car is in the works and destined for production. This all new hot hatch will be the Italian performance brands first foray into electric power, and is likely to come onto the market sometime next year.

Fiat CEO Olivier François in recent media interview said, “A year and a half ago, I said it can’t be that hard [to make an Abarth version of the electric 500], The good news is that we are actively working on it, and once it’s confirmed, it will be relatively quick … The bad news is that it’s more complicated to deliver than I thought.” He further added, “If you want to do a real Abarth, it’s not the same electric powertrain … Once it has the power and torque you want, it’s no longer the same drivetrain, nor the same transmission or brakes – The whole thing has to be adapted.”

According to the media reports, a 0-100km/h time below 7.0 seconds and top speed in excess of 160km/h are likely in the new Abarth variant. François also added that other electric Abarth models are already in the pipeline and the brand plans to offer a three-vehicle range concurrently in the future.

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