Euroboy has it spot on. There is a lot of bespoke body work on the 500A and it is the re build costs that force the price up, not the lack of Alarm.
Joe, I'm not sure where you got the idea of Abarth being aimed at younger drivers, that was never the intension.
The original buisness plan that I saw had the target market set at 30-45 year age group.
Whilst the insurance grouping is higher than originally imagined, that is hardly Abarths fault! The car is still one of the only cars at 3.5 metres long to have 5 stars in the encap tests. Its the greedy British insurance industry to blaim and the rebuild costs that the "approved" body shops want to charge to repair the things.

John, I completely agree, and by no means do I feel Abarth have done anything wrong! It is the rip off merchants that are 90% of the insurers in the UK. Also as an experiment I have made a few phonecalls this morning and have managed to get a quote from Elephant for a GPA for around £1700. Bearing in mind I have no no claims bonus as I've been on my dad's insurance, I think this is quite reasonable, and as you say - the 500 Abarth is a couple of groups lower.

Things may be looking up 

Apologies if any of my comments have been misconstrued as faulting Abarth in any way! As AlexK said in a previous post, my beef is indeed with the insurance companies.