Cast your imagination forward 1,000 years to the time when those few humans who survived the planet's ecological collapse (2043ad) take up the hobby of excavating ancient landfills and scrap heaps. Someone some day will unearth the Fiat Sedici.
"What's this?" cries the enthusiastic archaeology student. The Ancient Automobilia expert Sporg Clarkson, rumoured to be a direct descendent of Early Driving Man, will thus explain: "At a time when society was waking up to its impending carbon-addicted nemesis, the offroader was shunned by town planners and younger consumers. School-run mum, however, a particularly aggressive consumer, was adamant that the only way to go was by 4x4. And with the demand for offroaders still there, even small-car makers like Fiat wanted to mop up business, hence this example which was a shared project with Suzuki and built in Hungary."
History might well scratch its head over the Sedici - why would Fiat, at a time when the graffiti is on the wall for Leviathan brands like Land Rover and Jeep, reach for the small offroader niche? And a "scoff-roader" at that: the Sedici, after all, is a "compact SUV" and a model which every maker seems to now see as a marketing imperative. Small SUV demand across Europe, apparently, accounts for 6% of sales, but continued growth in that direction, particularly in the UK where anti-4x4 attitudes are hardening, is at best naive.
Nevertheless, if you're going to have one, an SUV from the European maker with the best average emissions seems sensible. And the latest addition to the range is this 1.9-litre, eight-valve multijet diesel which produces 120bhp and is consequently hardly an evil smog-chugger. The green copybook, indeed, is far from blotted: out of town: on a long run, Fiat claims the derv Sedici will score 49.6mpg, the combined figure being 42.8mpg. And with CO2 levels at 174g/km, that's a Band E rating and �160 - on par with Merc C Class 2.2 diesel and Mitsubishi's considerably larger diesel Outlander.
So it's no CO2 angel given its size, but 40mpg motoring is a feasible goal here, so what of the driving experience? Compact SUVs rarely hit the right balance of supermini practicality and buffed-up 4x4ish confidence - and the Sedici certainly doesn't. The crux of the problem is that it's trying to score goals simultaneously at both ends of the pitch. A 4x4? In the flesh, it wholeheartedly fails to convince as a go-anywhere machine. It's fitted with clever technology that ensures you can switch to four-wheel drive at the flick of a switch but it has no particular ground-clearance advantage (19cms) over a standard hatch.
