Fiat Palio Stile 1.1

The five-speed manual gearbox and the gear ratios remain the same as on the Palio 1.2 except for a slightly shorter first gear. The 1.2 Palio will never be remembered for its power or performance and neither will this motor. The relatively low-tech 1108cc single overhead camshaft engine loses about 15bhp and 1.0kgm of torque to the 1.2-litre engine’s 72bhp and 10.4kgm of torque. At 990kg, the car is simply too heavy for the engine. With 57bhp on tap, the car’s power-to-weight ratio is 57.57bhp per tonne — very much on the ‘underpowered’ section of the scale. The low-end response is acceptable and the mid-range power is decent, but past 4500rpm, the engine labours to its redline. You don’t notice this power deficit much when driving in traffic as it will easily maintain speed. Fiat concentrated on improving low-end responsiveness, so there is noticeable forward movement when you tap the throttle. However, it is when you demand some overtaking power that you feel this engine’s dire shortage of horses. Drop down a gear and there’s not much improvement in forward movement. Drop down one more and now the engine starts screaming, but again there is no serious grunt.

Straight-line performance is disappointing. 100kph comes up in an excruciatingly slow 20.45 seconds — that’s close to four seconds slower than the 1.2 Palio. It’s slower than the Indica 1.2 and the Chevy U-VA. In fact, the Chevy Spark is 5.0sec faster. The Palio is poor in the in-gear slogs too. 20-80kph in third gear comes up in 19.98sec and the 40-100kph in fourth gear comes up in 34.19sec! The good thing is that it doesn’t feel as slow as it sounds. Make good use of the slick-shifting gearbox, keep the engine between 1500-3000rpm and you will make decent forward progress.