So Fiat has, moving from concept to production in just 18 months thanks to all those engineers and designers who live entirely inside computers

The world has waited wistfully since Dante Giacosa’s tiny, rear-engined, air-cooled submini ceased production three decades ago, and eagerly since the Trepiuno concept at the 2004 Geneva show. It had just three seats and wasn’t really practical, but the world loved it. Clearly Fiat had the will to make a new 500 and make Italians love their national car company again. Fiat CEO Luca de Meo even admits that, when he got his job, his mother said he should build a new 500.

So Fiat has, moving from concept to production in just 18 months thanks to all those engineers and designers who live entirely inside computers. Reinterpreting something retro and (cue over-used word) iconic worked quite well for VW and brilliantly for Rover/BMW, so Fiat could hardly not do it. The result is a car with almost exactly the same profile as the orginal but blown up by 30 per cent or so. The faithful proportions called for some clever load-path engineering to keep the nose short, and a track widened by 40mm compared with its Panda base.

It looks terrific. The problem is trying to remain objective when you see the Fiat for the first time, because you just fall in love with it. How do we define the thrill of driving? On one, obvious level it’s about controlling something powerful, responsive, balanced, communicative, getting the best from it and feeling it get the best from you. But there’s another level, and it’s going to become more important as regulatory pressures squeeze our primary purpose. That is the warmth you feel from seeing and touching a car, the smile you get from familiarity reinterpreted, the appreciation of the love that has gone into a special car’s creation. That’s the Fiat 500 thrill; see it in the metal and a little chemical frisson fires through your blood.

You probably think I’ve lost it now, consumed by the hype (and there’s been plenty of that, not least the fiat500.com website on which thousands contributed their ideas for the hefty accessories list). But I still know that, to be a properly good car, the Fiat must also be a rousing drive.

Three engines are available at launch: a 1.2 8V with 69bhp, a 1.3 turbodiesel with 75bhp, and the 1.4-litre 16-valver from the Panda 100HP. In two years’ time there’ll be another, a 900cc vertical twin with a turbo and 90-plus bhp. So that one will even sound like the original.

Here in Italy, about to set off on the varying surfaces and many kilometres of Fiat’s enormous Balocco test complex, I’m sitting in a 500 Sport with the 99bhp engine. Other trim levels are Naked (not for the UK), Pop and Lounge. The ambience is truly retro reborn: the doors seem tall relative to the shallow windows, the dashboard is painted in body colour, and best of all there’s a big, round instrument pod in front of me just like the original 500’s but much larger. Around its outer edge is the speedometer scale (choose from modern gradations or retro-look castellations); concentrically within it is the tacho scale; in the centre is the digital information display.

The background trim is hard plastic but the expensive-looking leather, fabric or part-vinyl soft trim takes your eye away from it. The cream-coloured steering wheel and switchgear colourway suits the 500 best, perhaps with pale blue or pearlescent white paintwork. And yes, you can get two adults in the back, provided they don’t mind tilting their heads inwards to avoid the rear pillars.

Time to drive. The 1.4 is punchy and rorty in correct small-Fiat fashion, and the six-speed gearbox shifts particularly sweetly. The wide track helps keep the 500 taut and flat in corners, and electrically assisted numbness is the only thing that spoils otherwise quick, accurate steering. Its weight is enhanced if you press the Sport button, which also sharpens the throttle response; downshift blips are near-futile without it.

So you can fling the little Fiat from corner to corner with all the ease and agility a small car should offer, and it’s very enjoyable. The dynamic cocktail is very much like the Twingo’s, actually, but with a sharper engine, a better gearchange and not quite so much throttle-adjustablity. It’s going to be more expensive, though, even if it doesn’t quite reach Mini levels of designer-labeldom, pricewise.

Worth the extra? Of course it is. But you guessed that already.