The December issue of British Car magazine hit the streets with an unusual cover shoot: the cuddly, eco-chic Fiat 500 shares the spotlight with Audi’s insane R8 supercar and a gargantuan glittermobile in the form of the Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe. Despite such exalted, not to mention expensive, vehicular company the 500 is the one that received the crown, Car of the Year 2007 from Britain’s highly esteemed Car magazine.

The reason British Car gave for the Fiat 500 winning yet another coveted title (it is already Europe’s Car of the Year), is because it’s a “car perfectly in tune with modern planet Earth”. They went on to say that it’s fun to drive, frugal and allows buyers to personalise theirs to the ‘nth’ degree. It doesn’t matter that you could have a fleet of 20 Cinquecentos for the same money as the ‘Roller’.

In the words of Car’s Chris Chilton: “Here is a car that even the poorest among us could realistically at least aspire to afford, that looks as comfortable in a supermarket car park as it does outside a pretentious London eatery, and that reignites our passion for small, modestly powered cars; the cars every right-thinking enthusiast ought to be encouraging at this time.”