I was meaning to write about turbo lag the minute I picked up my Fiat Abarth but just never got around to it. Today is a cold rainy day and I thought that I would cross that topic off my list. You see, I never owned a turbo car before and therefore never experienced turbo lag.

Reviewers talk about it often when comparing and reviewing turbo cars. I had performed 6-months of research on-line before I decided to purchase the Fiat 500 Abarth C. Many of the articles and YouTube videos talked about how little turbo lag there was on the Abarth or how exciting it is. But for someone who has never experienced turbo lag, it became one of those mute points about the car simply because I did not know what it was sand no one ever explained it accurately. So after having experienced Turbo Lag, I wanted to take a crack at clarifying the term.

First of all the Turbo Abarth on the sport setting is a BLAST! But what does that mean exactly. Well, picture driving a Honda Civic on the highway in 5th gear doing 117 Kilometers/Hour (72 Miles/Hour) and you want to accelerate to pass a car. You would most likely gear down to fourth gear the get the necessary torque to pass. Once you geared down, the civic would begin to accelerate steadily.

Now turbo lag! With the fiat you have two choices.

The first is to simply stomp the gas peddle down to the floor and wait a split second for the turbo to max out and then BOOM, you go.

The second and most fun is to also gear down and step on it. I find that when you gear down and step on the accelerator, the Abarth hesitates for a split second then like a rocket it just goes like stink!

Exactly how does this feel? Well in my opinion it is like being on that pivot point at the top of a really tall monstrous roller coaster where the cars are just  passing over the tip where it seems like time stops for a split second then they suddenly drop and drop fast. The acceleration is strong, hard and relentless. That  is the Turbo Lag and result of the full Turbo Twin engaging on the Sport setting of the Abarth. Once engaged, the only thing in your mind is when do I let up on the accelerator so as not to loose my license.

Bottom Line… I love the split second turbo lag and the end result is just mind boggling.