I can understand your frustration, and you'll get no argument from me regarding the effectiveness (or otherwise!) of Abarth UK.
But I do feel you are winding yourself up about this unnecessarily.
The 500 was always due to arrive around February time, and for months we've known the anticipated base price to be around £13,500.
I'm worried that even having the car arrive on time and priced as expected still won't make you happy, because you've allowed yourself to tarnish your own possible ownership experience by looking for issues that aren't really there - perhaps driven by understandable eagerness to find out information of *any* kind, in the absence of anything else.
On the dealer network issues, we know there are several dealers that are very enthusiastic about the brand. But I have to say I think your speculation about the small network impacting on residual values is, well, more than a little bogus. I also don't accept your Golf GTi analogy.
Of course the 500 won't be like anything like a RUF, but you're not paying anything like RUF prices. To me, Abarths have always been 'sporty Fiats', since the beginning. To my mind, Abarth is to Fiat what AMG is to Mercedes. Both started as independent tuners, both have been brought in-house, and both continue to make fettled versions of standard production cars. AMG might have rather more to play with as a starting point, but I believe the analogy is fair.
I'd just hate for you to take delivery of a new Abarth next year and feel that somehow your enjoyment was diminished as a result of how you feel now.
While these are just my own personal opinions, and I'm not here to try to change your mind, but I hope you'll take them in the positive manner in which they are offered.
Be thankful you're not on the list for the new GT-R - delays *and* a £5k price hike!
EDIT: Oops, I appear to have waffled quite a bit. Typical journo... sorry...
