Yes the front seats and door cards look great - what you havent posted (in clear detail, although you can see it poking throgh from the back) is the picture of the rear bench, which is in black and seems to be the main bone of contention.

The red/black  exterior looks good with a red/black interior - but with any other colour it simply starts to get too 'busy'.  Imagine white exterior, white dash insert, red front seats, red door cards with a black rear bench. 

I had a very good look around such a colour combo before I placed the order for mine and it honestly looked like someone had stuck 3 different interiors together.

There was a chap at the Ace Cafe with a regular 500 with the red leather and the rear bench looked lovely - I honestly dont know why they couldnt have carried that across.

I originally wanted a red leather interior but in my eyes it simply didnt work in the flesh, plus the other half screwed her face up and said no,no,no at it!

Said it all for me 

Thanks for the picture John. I love the red seats, but I just cannot accept a black back seat. Shame, I thought I had my spec sorted. Unless I seriously fall in love at the test drive, I will have to self spec and not take one of the 200.

I agree Joe, I dont have a problem with the rear seats being black, to be fair as its a small ish car you dont really get to see the rear's that much anyway.

Have I missed something, or is the rear seat just fabric? Does the leather interior option only add leather to the front seats?

.....I've got several two seaters already! this is supposed to be the sensible car.

No offence Shep, but if you deem the Abarth 500 to be sensible then I think you're in the wrong place! The Abarth 500 is a fun car! A fun car from a racing brand who have a history of doing things differently...  If the colour of the leather seats in one half of the car being different to the other makes the A500 a difficult choice then buy a vectra or something - that's a sensible (boring) car! 

I have red leather in my Gray with red details Abarth. I think it looks really good as it is just a red leather insert.