OK, I'll try to have a stab at this one.
When we took the franchise, I was expecting a long line of 18 year old test pilots cramming through the doors, it has actually been the complete oposite.
The average age of people is between 30 and 55, currently own a perfomance hatch, (the most common PX is the golf R32) and suprisingly are covering between 18 to 30000 miles a year.
I think the reasons for this are:
1, The kids cant afford the insurance on the Abarth.
2, Abarth has been absent from the U.K. for many years now, so the current youngsters have been brought up with RS and ST as the main performance models.
3, People are now realising that running a Diesel is not as cheap as it used to be, so a small engine petrol witha bit of performance is more attractive.
As far as residuals go, the guides wont publish prices for Abarth yet because they haven't got a clue how it will hold its money, so they dont want to get it wrong. If you get a PCP quote on a GP Abarth from Fiat Financial Services they are showing a gaurenteed future value of a 3 year old GP with 36000 miles on it at £3900. You must remember that this is a Minimum future value, so they always set it lower than it will actaully be worth. Every car usually devalues about 60% in 3 years, so a rough figure of between £5000 - £5500 would probably be a safe ish bet.
It will remain quite exclusive in the U.K. because we wont be able to get the mass numbers, of lets say Fiat. That will have the knock on effect of there not being any pre-registered cars availble through the car supermarkets, thus keeping the price again.
I've got to say that this is the only car that i've had for a while that puts a broad smile on my face on the way to work, had one for over a month now and its not getting old yet.
As far as fuel goes, I can't really comment because:
1, I run mine on super unleaded
2, My right foot is very heavy
All in all, I think that you will struggle to get anything in todays market place that will give you better value for money, and be such a joy to drive.