irishcar.com - Fiat Punto Speedgear

Fiat's new generation Punto is winning deserved accolades all over the shop. More to the point, it is winning customers in every Fiat car shop in the land, to the tune of making it Ireland's best-selling car this year.

Unfortunately, only a very small proportion of those will be the Speedgear version. Unfortunately because of my firm belief that every car should be an automatic. Should be so because people drive much more safely when they're not stirring gear cogs and adrenalin at the same time.

The Speedgear is what used to be the Selecta in the previous Punto, and that particular rendition of the CVT transmission was to my mind the best of its kind. Now, though, they've tweaked it up by adding a 'manual' option, whereby you can flick the gearlever to select six 'gear settings', clutchlessly of course.

Some people like that kind of thing. Mostly I didn't bother. Except, it IS useful when driving through twisty hilly countryside and you like to use a little engine braking rather than constantly stabbing the stop pedal.

And it is easy-pie to use, simply move the lever forward to go up the gears, and back to go down. And if you don't bother touching it at all, it will automatically slip down to the right 'gear' as you slow in traffic.

Yep, worth having, I guess. But as a pure automatic, this CVT system is faultless and foolproof anyway. It has a couple of other wrinkles too. One is now common to many autos, in that the lever won't shift out of Park unless you have your foot on the brake. The other is a 'dinging' warning while in, or passing through, Reverse.

That last brought negative comments from some colleagues and friends. They felt it was very annoying, particularly while in Reverse for longish minutes waiting to manoeuvre in car parks, for instance.

It can probably be disconnected.

Hmm ... just in case there are people out there who are still not familiar with CVT systems, here's the quick lesson. Instead of a series of four or five gears as in manual or 'ordinary' automatic cars (in the autos you can feel it shifting up and down through them) the CVT has a steel pulley belt running between the engine and the transmission. One of the pulley wheels expands its diameter as engine speed increases, thus providing a virtually infinite number of 'settings'. Put the boot down and hold it there and the engine will rev high and gradually come down again, all the time with your car speed increasing. Depending on the pressure you exert and the driving conditions, the system means the car is always in precisely the right ‘gear’ for whatever you want it to do.

The clutchfree end of things is taken care of by a normal torque convertor as used in standard automatics, so the car has the usual and very useful ‘creep’ facility. And for those of you who worry about autos being more thirsty than manuals, I’d suggest that this one could even be more economical than a zestfully-pushed standard Punto. Fiat themselves say the Speedgear has a fuel consumption of 43.5mpg as against 47.1mpg for the manual car.

The engine that comes with the Speedgear is the 16v version of the 1.2-litre petrol engine, which outputs 80bhp instead of 60bhp for the 8-valver. It provides quite good poke and zips the car at a decent 12.6 secs to 62mph. There’s a tidy suspension setup, and the review car coped nicely with the different conditions it was put to.

As to the latest Punto shape, I have to say that I prefer it in the 5-door version, as was the Speedgear. It’s funny, but the new car looks smaller than its predecessor from the outside, though inside it is at least as roomy and finished to a quite higher standard. The seats proved themselves extremely comfortable for the class, and my alternate driver had no problem finding a comfortable position, thanks to a decent and easy-to-use height adjustment system.

Full marks too for the latest dashboard design, done both in good materials and also with a fair bit of thought as to how to add usable storage areas. The instruments in the Speedgear include a rev-counter, which allowed me to note that in ‘manual’ mode, the engine was turning significantly faster at a set speed than when in ‘auto’, suggesting that to use it manually might result in poorer fuel consumption.

Anyway, as is clear, I liked the Speedgear. At £11,995, it is only about £500 more than the manual car with the same engine, though there are a few extras on that HLX manual. I’d sacrifice them for the Speedgear.

Speedgear makes Puntoing easy	August 2000
Fiat's new generation Punto is winning deserved accolades all over the shop. More to the point, it is winning customers in every Fiat car shop in the land, to the tune of making it Ireland's best-selling car this year. Unfortunately, only a very small proportion of those will be the Speedgear version. Unfortunately because of my firm belief that every car should be an automatic. Should be so because people drive much more safely when they're not stirring gear cogs and adrenalin at the same time. The Speedgear is what used to be the Selecta in the previous Punto, and that particular rendition of the CVT transmission was to my mind the best of its kind. Now, though, they've tweaked it up by adding a 'manual' option, whereby you can flick the gearlever to select six 'gear settings', clutchlessly of course. Some people like that kind of thing. Mostly I didn't bother. Except, it IS useful when driving through twisty hilly countryside and you like to use a little engine braking rather than constantly stabbing the stop pedal. And it is easy-pie to use, simply move the lever forward to go up the gears, and back to go down. And if you don't bother touching it at all, it will automatically slip down to the right 'gear' as you slow in traffic. Yep, worth having, I guess. But as a pure automatic, this CVT system is faultless and foolproof anyway. It has a couple of other wrinkles too. One is now common to many autos, in that the lever won't shift out of Park unless you have your foot on the brake. The other is a 'dinging' warning while in, or passing through, Reverse. That last brought negative comments from some colleagues and friends. They felt it was very annoying, particularly while in Reverse for longish minutes waiting to manoeuvre in car parks, for instance. It can probably be disconnected. Hmm ... just in case there are people out there who are still not familiar with CVT systems, here's the quick lesson. Instead of a series of four or five gears as in manual or 'ordinary' automatic cars (in the autos you can feel it shifting up and down through them) the CVT has a steel pulley belt running between the engine and the transmission. One of the pulley wheels expands its diameter as engine speed increases, thus providing a virtually infinite number of 'settings'. Put the boot down and hold it there and the engine will rev high and gradually come down again, all the time with your car speed increasing. Depending on the pressure you exert and the driving conditions, the system means the car is always in precisely the right ‘gear’ for whatever you want it to do. The clutchfree end of things is taken care of by a normal torque convertor as used in standard automatics, so the car has the usual and very useful ‘creep’ facility. And for those of you who worry about autos being more thirsty than manuals, I’d suggest that this one could even be more economical than a zestfully-pushed standard Punto. Fiat themselves say the Speedgear has a fuel consumption of 43.5mpg as against 47.1mpg for the manual car. The engine that comes with the Speedgear is the 16v version of the 1.2-litre petrol engine, which outputs 80bhp instead of 60bhp for the 8-valver. It provides quite good poke and zips the car at a decent 12.6 secs to 62mph. There’s a tidy suspension setup, and the review car coped nicely with the different conditions it was put to. As to the latest Punto shape, I have to say that I prefer it in the 5-door version, as was the Speedgear. It’s funny, but the new car looks smaller than its predecessor from the outside, though inside it is at least as roomy and finished to a quite higher standard. The seats proved themselves extremely comfortable for the class, and my alternate driver had no problem finding a comfortable position, thanks to a decent and easy-to-use height adjustment system. Full marks too for the latest dashboard design, done both in good materials and also with a fair bit of thought as to how to add usable storage areas. The instruments in the Speedgear include a rev-counter, which allowed me to note that in ‘manual’ mode, the engine was turning significantly faster at a set speed than when in ‘auto’, suggesting that to use it manually might result in poorer fuel consumption. Anyway, as is clear, I liked the Speedgear. At £11,995, it is only about £500 more than the manual car with the same engine, though there are a few extras on that HLX manual. I’d sacrifice them for the Speedgear.
by Brian Byrne.

Speedgear makes Puntoing easy