Is a Fiat 500 Hybrid good enough for getting around the Dolomites for a few days?

A sidebar question is if any of these might be a manual transmission
car and if you have experience driving one. Second sidebar is how much
experience you have with mountain driving.

You can probably make a reservation and then see what else is available
when you get there and change cars if you see a better option.

Italians have traditionally driven cars with very small engines for tax reasons. I'm sure there's many who drive Fiat 500s daily. It depends on your tolerance for thrashing a little car up hills with your foot to the floor in first in worst case scenarios. At least it's not a 700cc Fiat Panda from the 80's, though I'm sure there's some of them still doing duty too.

Yeah good points - I have extensive mountain driving experience, and drove a manual for my first 15 years of driving and have driven one all over Europe - it's been a little while since I've driven one, but never had an issue when I have had to pick it back up, so not worried about the mountain or manual issue

A manual's always going to be better in the mountains. At least coming down hill you can get in a low gear and use engine braking rather than getting into a hairy scenario with brake fade from hot brakes in an automatic.

edit: Bringing myself reluctantly in to the 21st century, a hybrid in full regen mode is going to be doing quite a bit of braking for you coming down hill and getting a good charge in your battery.

Have you read any reviews? It's a "mild" hybrid, so only limited electric assist. But the engine is only 69 hp, which doesn't sound like something up to steep mountain driving, even in lower gears..

The main problem with the Fiat 500 is that the seats are placed rather high up, which makes the center of gravity high, and is, to me, very uncomfortable in corners. I've driven these around Napa Valley and in southern Oregon.

I recently spent 5 days with a Peugeot 208 in the south of France, including a trip to Andorra, and I wouldn't buy one. You definitely want the manual in this vehicle.

The Opal is, like the Fiat, an inexpensive small car. I've only driven those locally, usually when my car is in the shop, but it's not bad.

You will find that most of the smaller cars are easy to get around in tight places, which is an advantage. But they are not as capable for long trip on the highways at speed. In the mountains most of the roads are going to be 50-80 kph, so that's not a real problem.

I really don't worry about theft from vehicles in Europe.

How many in the car?

Are you Olympic gymnast size or NFL linemen size?

How much the car might 'struggle', depends on how much it has to move.

I would avoid an electric car, for the reasons you list.

Have you read any reviews? It's a "mild" hybrid, so only limited electric assist. But the engine is only 69 hp, which doesn't sound like something up to steep mountain driving, even in lower gears..

Nah, I hadn't read any reviews. My theory was based around what I know from driving a Prius a few times. Never owned a hybrid. Thanks for debunking that.

69hp isn't so bad. I can't find figures for the 1st gen Panda, but the 2nd gen with the 769cc had 34hp, admittedly in a much lighter car. They sold in their millions in Italy and right across the continent. Millions of Italians drive Fiat 500s, many of them live in mountainous regions. Suggesting a small car would be incapable of driving up hill is silly. It really does depend on your tolerance for beating the sh*t out of it. I've owned several sub-1000cc cars in my time and driven up many a mountain road in Scotland in all weathers. How many little Fiats, Citroens and Peugeots from the 80's and 90's have you owned? It might not be much fun, but certainly not impossible.

My mother owns a Vauxhall Corsa at the moment. I did nearly 1000 miles in the highlands driving that in June. The equivalent Opel Corsa is a bit bigger than a Fiat 500, would be perfectly adequate for anything you throw at it and has a decent size trunk with a parcel shelf for luggage. Joe makes a good point about how many people. This class of car is fine for two chunky adults and maybe a child or two. More than that and you might be struggling a bit and would be advised to go up a rental class.

Of all those cars I would certainly go for the Fiat 500X. That is a powerful and spacious compact crossover SUV.
The Fiat 500 regular and the Lancia Y have the same power, i.e. no power. They have less than 1.0 L displacement for 50 some Kw of power. The Fiat 500X has a displacement of 1.4 in the L fire engine with a power output of over 100kw, so twice as powerful as the regular 500 or the Lancia Ypsilon.
I’ve never driven the EVO but I’ve seen it. It has a GPL (Liquid Propane gas)/gasoline version. You can switch between the two and the gasoline has a higher power output, somewhat between the 500 and the 500X. The EVO has more space. DR 4 has more power of all. But I don’t know about it much, it’s basically a cheap Chinese car that DR (a new Italian brand) decided to venture into. The Opel Astra is good. Not as powerful as the 500 X decent and nice size.
However you are giving us cars of different segments. The Fiat500X is considered a level above the regular 500. If prices are similar I’d go for the 500X, of all the above choices. That car is also super popular in Italy so the chances of getting one are really high provided you upgrade at that segment from the 500 regular (which is considered an economy car, like the Ypsilon and the DR 3.

Fully agree with Roberto! The 500x is a good car, a huge step up from a 500 despite the similar-sounding name, and still nimble enough to manage narrow roads.
I rented a 500 in Tuscany last fall and it had been a while since I had last driven a car with such little power and such questionable suspension beyond 70 kph, although it handled reasonably well in the curvy roads.

One reason to get a Hybrid is that a hybrid will always be an automatic. Manual cars are in fact getting rarer in Europe as well. Europe for all kinds of reasons traditionally always favoured smaller engines, and the typical old fashioned US 3 speed automatic of yore needs a big engine. But things are changed with lots of automatics being build in small cars as well, and automatics now getting better fuel economy even.

Note that the go-to car for mountain farmers in Italy is the Panda 4x4, so a small car in itself is not an issue. But I would still want something bigger. Just for the sake of my comfort...

The Lancia Y is basically the same car as the Fiat 500. Same platform. Just different body, interior and maybe some tuning. The Peugeot 208 is on the same platform as well. These are all very similar cars. Car makers have a set of "platforms", that they use to derive multiple models from. The Fiat 500X is basically the same car as the Jeep Renegade.

Which also means that it is possible that you book one, and get one of the others, as there is never a guarantee that you get the car you booked. It is always "or similar".
I would go for the 500X (or similar). You might end up with a Peugeot 2008, or an Opel Mokka, or a Citreon DS3 (that is assuming that the franchise is owned by Stellantis, or a subsidiary...)

There was a very similar question - same car, same mountains, 3 weeks ago. Maybe have a look at the answers there - there were quite a few.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/renting-a-car-for-the-dolomites-fiat-500-hybrid-or-lancia-y

Thanks for all of the helpful input! It will be my wife and I, and we are both thin and lightweight - probably almost less than half of an NFL lineman put together! We will have 2 pretty small bags, so not too much weight. Having said that, it looks like the 500x class is not much more expensive, so will probably go for that based on the feedback here - part of me wanted to go for the 500 just to feel like i was getting the Italian experience (half-kidding!), but sounds like it is pretty underpowered. It's also good to hear that break-ins are not much of an issue - what a refreshing change of pace that will be coming from the US!

The 500X has a much bigger cargo space, besides more power than the 500.

The main differences between the two versions are illustrated in this video

OK that is a great advertisement! - I usually find commercials in the US unwatchable but it looks like Italian ads might be better!