Most of the Fiats we have known and loved over the years have been smaller cars. Now, it appears that the Italian manufacturer is branching out into larger vehicles. This is especially of the Fiat Freemont Crossroad, a generously cut MPV that’s built for families.  If you loved Bambis or Unos in your single and/or childless days, you are now able to stick with the marque you prefer now that you’ve got little ‘uns in tow.

The Fiat Freemont Crossroad is the grandest of the Freemont range, being both the largest (it’s a seven-seater) and the most luxurious, with heaps of very handy bells and whistles to make transporting a family easier.

Let’s take the typical family day with a vehicle and see how well the Fiat Freemont Crossroad has been designed to make life easier.  Your typical parent will usually start the day by doing the school and kindy run before heading off to work. At the end of the day, there’s kids to pick up again, plus grabbing the groceries now and again. In the weekend, there’s sports activities to be gone to, more shopping to do and probably a family outing off somewhere different.

Well, the Fiat Freemont Crossroad gets full marks for catering to the needs of the children who will ride in it on the school and sports run.  The car comes ready fitted with child booster seats and the side doors open to 90°, which, along with the easy-slide middle row of seats, means that everybody can get in and out of the car easily.  Of course, both the rear and middle seats can fold flat, just in case Mum or Dad has to take an extra long load (those lengths of timber for that DIY project, for example).  Each seat folds down individually, meaning that you can customise how you carry your loads – very handy!

When you get to work, you want your car to look presentable rather than boring and bland.  Well, the Fiat Freemont Crossroad certainly isn’t your big white family fridge on wheels. Not with the stylish front fog lights, the 19-inch alloy wheels, body coloured mirrors (which are heated and fold electrically) and punchy looks.  At first glance, the Fiat Freemont Crossroad looks like an SUV or 4×4, but it isn’t. It does have ABS braking, cruise control and an electric stability control packagewith a hill holder, though, and it also has trailer sway control: a big plus if you’re towing the caravan for a family getaway, which the 3.6-litre V6 petrol engine is quite capable of doing with the 206 kW of power and 342 Nm of torque on tap, and the six-speed auto transmission.

Every parent of small children knows about the hassles of getting grumpy tired toddlers plus the shopping into the car. The Fiat Freemont Crossroad does its best to help you here.  While a car can’t exactly soothe a tantrum (although the DVD playback option and the 8.4-inch colour display screen might do the trick), the keyless entry and push-button start means that you’re not left trying to get your keys out of your pocket while holding a squirmy, grizzly kid and/or a supermarket trolley with rotten handling (the handling in the Fiat Freemont Crossroad is much better than that – I promise!).  The rear parking sensors and assistance camera also make things easier when you’re getting in and out of tight spaces – or the driveway.

(overseas model shown)

During a longer outing, the “are we there yet?” syndrome may be postponed by getting the right sort of entertainment pumped out on the Alpine audio system (the amplifier’s 368 Watts can drown out the whining if whatever you’ve got on the radio, CD, MP3 player or USB input device doesn’t work – crank up the volume using the steering wheel mounted audio controls if you have to).  You’ll also know exactly how to get there thanks to the satellite navigation.  And if you are getting hot under the collar, the dual-zone climate control will do what it can.

Thanks to the Fiat Freemont Crossroad, family-sized motoring is now stylish as well as practical.

Current model series include:

• Fiat Freemont Crossroad

For any more information on the Fiat Freemont Crossroad, or for that matter any other new car, contact one of our friendly consultants on 1300 303 181. If you’d like some fleet discount pricing (yes even for private buyers!), we can submit vehicle quotes requests out to our national network of Fiat dealers and come back with pricing within 24 hours. Private Fleet – car buying made easy!