See Photos of the Updated 2019 Fiat 500X
For its mid-cycle update, less attention was paid to restyling the 500X than re-engineering it.
It doesn't take much to give a car a new look these days—fiddle with the headlamps and taillamps, reskin the front and rear bumpers, maybe swap in some new wheels, and presto! The car can take on a whole new countenance. Well, three years after its debut, Fiat's most SUV-like vehicle, the 500X crossover, is entering the 2019 model year having undergone all of the aforementioned mid-cycle styling procedures, and—huh? Did anything change?
After close—very close—inspection, we saw that indeed, the headlamps look slightly different, as do the turn signals, although their roundish shapes remain the same.
As for those "redesigned" fascias? All we've seen so far is the new-for-'19 Trekking Plus trim level, and compared to the 2018 500X Trekking model, only the lowest edge of each fascia has changed, with the front losing its silly suggestion of a skid plate and the rear banishing the tailpipe to a dark place somewhere behind it.
Just as significant—even more so from a marketing standpoint—is that all 500Xs will get the formerly optional on-demand all-wheel-drive system standard.
Fiat's preliminary specifications show the curb weight as exactly the same as last year's 500X with the 2.4-liter and all-wheel drive.
Last year's base engine was paired to a six-speed manual transmission and thus equipped, the 500X was reasonably fun, but for 2019, the only available transmission is a nine-speed automatic with manual shift control, three driving modes, and four overdrive gears.
Fuel economy is projected to rise as much as two miles per gallon, however, with an estimated 23 mpg city, 29 highway, and 26 combined, according to Fiat.
The cloth-upholstered Pop trim still serves as the base version of the 500X, but now comes with the more powerful engine, standard autobox, and all-wheel drive; its price climbs by some $4500 to $25,785.
The more rugged-looking Trekking model starts at $27,290 and includes dark-tinted windows, quilted upholstery, a cargo shelf, and a driver-information display in the gauge cluster, plus a one-year satellite radio subscription.
New 17- and 18-inch wheels have supplanted last year's array of 16-to-19-inch wheels, but beyond that, it's the same old 500X.
The previously rectangular fog lamps have become circular, too, while the squarish taillamps get new-look innards of their own, now rendered in high relief.
Perhaps Fiat went light on the redesign so it could reallocate resources to the engineering team. Clearly some resources were expended in the development of Fiat's new turbocharged 1.3-liter inline-four, which is found under the hood of all U.S.-bound 2019 500X models, replacing both last year's 160-hp 1.4-liter turbocharged Multi-Air base engine and the 175-hp naturally aspirated 2.4-liter Tigershark inline-four that has been offered as an upgrade.
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