For a small family car, the Fiat 500L’s safety levels are quite high. As standard it comes with two front airbags, two window airbags and two side airbags. It also gets the usual bits of technology like stability control and ABS. It gets a new ‘City Brake Control’ system too. This will be available a little after the initial launch and is capable of recognising obstacles in front of the car, braking automatically if the driver fails to do so. Euro NCAP, have awarded the 500L five stars for safety.

Trekking models also get mud and snow tyres, along with City Brake Control – which brakes the car at speeds between 3 and 19mph if a possible collision is detected.

This is the prime focus of the Fiat 500L and it proves to be the car’s best feature. With the rear seats pushed back the luggage capacity is 343 litres. These can then slide forward and bootspace expands to 400 litres. They are also split 60:40 to make it more flexible, and the amount of room in the rear rises to a maximum 1,310 litres. That’s not quite as good as the Hyundai ix20 that is capable of carrying 440 litres of luggage with the seats up and 1,486 litres with them folded flat.

Dropping the rear seats in the Fiat is a simple affair. Pull a lever on the top of the seat and they drop forward then tumble further with absolute ease: there’s no weightlifter-like effort to expand the room in the boot. The 500L boot does have a clever feature, too. Including the parcel shelf, it is a three-level boot. Underneath the boot floor you can store fragile items or bits you don’t want rolling about.

You can then take this out and slot it into a fitting slightly higher to give further room underneath. Then there’s the standard boot floor, which gets useful holding nets and fold-down hooks. The lip of the boot is also quite low with a wide opening, making it incredibly easy to put heavier items in the car. In the cabin there are a total of 22 compartments to put all your other loose items like phone and wallet.

The door bins are a decent size, though you do have to squash 500ml bottle a little to get it in. There are two glove compartments, which are useful if your car is overflowing with documents and CDs. Overall, Fiat 500L practicality is good.