Pop quiz: how many hot hatches you remember, that came with an inline-5 engine? Before the second generation Ford Focus ST and the Volvo C30 T5, there was the Fiat Bravo HGT, with the 20-valve, 155-horsepower five.
The HGT never caught the top laurels in 1990s comparison tests, but it was uniquely true to its own concept. Rounded Fiat designs from the period have aged with varying results, and it’s easy to pick the Coupé and the Barchetta as the ones that still appeal to the eye, and still: the Bravo HGT somehow works. Four-spoke wheels and all.


The almond-shaped taillights are a nicer work than the three scrapes forming the light cluster for the 5-door sibling Brava.

Inside, you either got wrinkly leather, or a jazzier part leather upholstery. The dashboard was probably one of the blobbiest efforts of the era, with molten-looking plastic shapes everywhere, iffy typefaces on the gauges and an integrated stereo that relied on DIGITAL CASSETTE SOUND and a flap to cover the deck.

 

A great number of Bravos have probably been sent to the scrap heap by now, but I’d like to spend some quality time with that 20-valve five, no matter whether it came in this hatchback body or the bigger, fatter Marea. Somewhere deep inside, there has to be some verve.