I bought a Fiat 500 Pop.
It was great fun to test drive, great fun to purchase, and now great fun to own.
Initially I thought about purchasing purchase another Suzuki, a black SX4 hatchback. This car resembles the old yellow Suzuki Aereo that was totaled when I got rear-ended a couple of years ago. I adored by Aereo.
I generally name my cars. I planned to name the black Suzuki “Paloma Negra.” The name comes from a lovely, mournful song I heard in Mexico. That purchase didn’t happen for a variety of reasons, none of which had to do with falling in love with the Pop.
When I first met the Pop, I had a love/hate relationship with it. I say “met” the Pop on purpose. A violinist once explained that a masterwork requires playing with a master instrument. He described his experience “meeting” a renown violin. Ok, ok, thinking about this car as a master violin is a vast overstatement, true. During my first encounter with the Pop, I was disdainful. Why? Well, it’s poop brown and it’s a Pop, so my natural inclination is to call it a Fiat Poop. That’s probably why it was still on the used car lot, unsold, with such low mileage and at a great bargain. Who in the world would buy a poop car.
I’ve had a blast making poop jokes all weekend.
With that aside, the car has a cute retro aesthetic and handles well. It feels like an old-school VW Beetle to me. I feel engaged with the car and the road when I drive it. It’s my first automatic in over 20 years, but it can drive like a manual without a clutch. One review (somewhere…) says it drives like a sports car – meaning that it sounds and feels like a sports car – but without the speed. You feel like you’re going fast, but you’re not. That’s exactly what I need! If I go fast, that’s way too dangerous for a driver like me!
The car is basically a go kart.
It’s a Fiat Poop. A Shart Car. The Poop Mobile. So many more….
We’ll see how it does. It still hasn’t told me its name. Maybe it will not have a real name – just an odd name like my yellow car, secretly called the Banana Boat.
I spend so much time thinking in metaphors, I wonder what I can make of this poop mobile. It’s not unlike my little Burro that I wrote about previously, is it…