Erin Baker: Does luxury have to mean big?

Callum and I were talking before Christmas about the E-Pace, Jaguar’s new, smaller SUV, which led on to the conversation about small cars. We wondered why luxury has to mean big. I told him there’s a small car my son and I pass every day outside his school which I hanker after – a Fiat 500 Riva. The Italians are so good at packaging luxury up in small, perfectly formed boxes. The 500 Riva is born of a partnership with Riva, purveyor of those timeless wooden launches and yachts you see bobbing about on their anchors at Villa d’Este, Painted a deep navy blue, with navy fabric roof and aquamarine line running along the bodywork, the limited-edition 500 Riva makes me dribble with desire. There are striking 20-spoke alloys, and a Riva logo on the boot, wheel arch and wooden inserts.

The inside has been joyously furnished by a generous hand, with the door sills and gear knob carved from a single piece of mahogany, with maple inlay work on the dash. The cream leather seats contrast exquisitely with the glossy dark paintwork. The little car exudes wealth and classy Riviera status, and yet the whole footprint is pocket-sized. Under the bonnet is Fiat’s 1.2-litre TwinAir engine, available with 69hp, 85hp or a breathtaking 105hp. That, to me, seems like a socio-economic group we’d all like to be part of: the subtle, sophisticated, ecologically sound, stylish, financially savvy, knowledgable motorist.

I’m currently driving an altogether different small car: the new Fiesta ST-line – an ST-trimmed Fiesta: the proper Fiesta ST is with us later this year. If you haven’t driven a small car with a 1.0-litre engine for years, do so. You’ll be pleasantly surprised. For example, the comparison between this 1.0-litre EcoBoost Ford engine, with 140 eager horses, and my late Eighties 997cc Austin Metro, where most of the horses had been sent to the knackers yard by the time I owned it, is hilarious. Small cars these days, even at the mass-market end of the scale, have posh fabrics, Apple CarPlay, and touchscreen satnavs. More importantly, they don’t, on the whole, feel cheap and nasty and tinny: you don’t have to shout to be heard at motorway speeds, the doors don’t shut with a thin clang, your hands don’t sweat when they grasp the sticky cheap plastic steering wheel. It’s almost enough to make one feel nostalgic for the days of small cars full of “character”. My Metro had so much character that, if one drove above speeds of 60mph, the bonnet invariably flew up, instantly blocking all forward vision. That was an interesting quirk.

Yes, the quality of small cars and expectations of their owners have grown exponentially, but still no one sees the small car as a luxury product. Given that urban population growth is only going one way, and emissions another, this perception of the small car will surely start to change sooner rather than later. If Fiat wants to give me a 500 Riva, I’m happy to be in the vanguard.