Very interesting.
It makes quite clear that 6 speed boxes which i have always said the Abarth needed (and even my wife complains about it now) shows its benefits here for the Mini (the heaviest car) economy figures CO2 figures and the performance although the drag coefiecients are not shown they wont be to different between the Mini and the Citroen which both have the same engine in (although the compresion ratio shown say 10.5:1 for the Citroen and 11.1:1 for the Mini).
The 'BMW invented this class' statement is rubbish Alec Issigonis and Dante Giacossa did no dispute. All BMW ever did was stick an awful american engine which had problems lining up with the gearbox in the retro shell and finally gave up and sourced a great engine from the PSA group.
The other issue that is highlighted in the summary section Great White Hopes is the issue of the Abarths fuel tank i would be overjoyed with a tank the size of the Citroen but as the 500 was designed with engines with far greater mpg's than the Abarths it is a compramise we have to live with. Which can be enjoyable when you get all the stares every time you go to petrol station!
I've thought about this six speed box malarky for quite a while now my car has a huge rush of power from 3.5k upwards. In addition my Wife's 500 has the six speed box and it's a nice little unit. I've been reliably informed that the 5 speed box in the Abarth has been used in various other turbo applications up to 450nm of torque, reliably, and has been about in Fiat's stable since the early 90's. So this is the main reason our cars have the 5 speed box, it's pretty strong and proven.
Most performance cars these days with six speed boxes have long legs, ie they rev out to well over 7,000 rpm and up to 9000 rpm. Thats great with a six speed box, not so great with a car rev limited to just over 6000 rpm. This rev limit indicates that the static balancing of the various engine components on the car is unlikely to be to the standards necessary to raise the rev limit substantially. My car has another 500 rpm on standard and a very lightweight flywheel/clutch assembly and all items attached to the crank have been balanced to very fine levels (pistons/rods/flywheel/clutch etc).
With the lightweight setup on my drivetrain the engine spins up so fast the rev limit is approached very, very quickly. My thoughts often turn to a DSG system, or a sequential system. My hand might be forced if the box lets go at some point anyway!
With my car, I would think a six speed box might be a bit difficult with the limited rev range. On a standard (slower revving) Abarth a six speed box would probably be about right as I found mine dropped out of the turbo a bit too easily so keeping the revs up would be a good thing. The problem here is that the current six speed box is not designed to cope with the torque from the Abarth. I imagine the next edition of the Abarth will include an uprated six speed box. It's a logical step.
