So all of you who thought the APE was ugly in the renders, what were your thoughts of it in the metal?

Does the back bumper still look weird with a huge plastic bit in the middle?
Does the front still look to fussy with all those vents and grills?
Do the now body coloured wheel arches etc look weird?
Interior, better or worse?

Thoughts please! 

Read the mag article, trust me AlexK went in very skepticle and really likes it.... he keeps telling me I will love it when I see it...

Was behind a Punto EVO today.  Looked cack.  Nothing like the Abarth EVO at Goodwood.

after seeing the real thing at goodwood here are my thoughts...

i had some preconceptions about the evo, i didn,t think the new front and back treatment was good, didn,t like the painted sill and arches and the stop start system was bound to be a pain.

from the fiat punto evo i didn,t like the chrome strip on the nose and wasn,t keen on the red dashboard i had seen.

in the flesh, all the issues with the external looks went away, the chrome strip from the fiat is gone, replaced by black, loved the grey paint and the appearance is different but not ugly as i thought it would be.

the wheels are really good and by accident or design will be much easier to repair after minor damage as the polished area is in segments rather than one mass over the entire wheel. blending the repaired area is very difficult on the previous polished wheels.

the top start worked so unobtrusively that i hadn,t noticed it stop, only when i put the clutch down did the starter announce what was happening. and it doesn,t just cut out when coming to a standstill in traffic.

on the AGP one of the strong points of the interior is the leather dash, everyone comments on how nice it is so it was going to be difficult to change for the better.
the fiat evo interior didn,t impress me and unfortunately the abarth is no better. the shiny black is awful and the leather has been replaced by a rubbery textured matterial which  looks and feels unpleasant. there is a leather area on top of the intrument cowl which looked to me like they had made a little leather hat for it!
the new arrangement for the sport button  seems clumsy and together with the usb socket occupies what had previously been the obvious place to put your phone.

driving was a bit difficult to judge in the artificial surroundings of the track but it felt strong enough and i got the abs kicking in with about the same amount of braking as i,m used to on my car.

overall i,d be happy buying the car for its external looks and performance but wouldn,t find the interior at all to my taste.

lloyd
 

I'll put my two cents on that being a topic for much derision once the car is available... the catch mechanism was more useless than a useless thing, it popped open three times during my Goodwood test drive alone.

Went to look at one at Platts today...

IMO it looks ok on the outside, inside tho, wtf? It's plastic not-so-fantastic!!!

I for sure won't loose any sleep with not 'upgrading'

I don't understand why they have repositioned the usb input thingy in front of the gear stick? My USB stick cost £80 quid and is moderately safe stowed away in the glove box. I feel it would be easily TWOC'ed if I left it in the EVO.

I've currently have the EVO as a courtesy car and I must admit I think the recession hit the quality and design departments. The trim is terrible.