Tuning firms Hamman and H&R have joined forces to create a monster out of the Fiat 500 Abarth with an insane power boost to 275-horsepower.

Beginning with the engine bay, Hamann’s engineers used forged pistons, enhanced connection rods, new camshafts and a modified turbocharger to increase the 1.4-liter petrol unit’s peak output to an impressive 275 hp and 380 Nm (280 lb-ft) of torque. That’s 196.4 hp/liter, more than double of what is considered to be an excellent ratio.

The Hamann tuning firm is a well known BMW and luxury car tuner, but have now added the Fiat 500 Abarth to their list of modified cars since it is extremely popular. This new program for the Cinquecento features a new aero kit to make it much more aggressive. Hamann also offers several performance packages to the car to a new level. As for the aerodynamics, they chose to modify the Fiat with a new front skirt, integrated LED daytime running lights, wing extensions, side skirts, and a redesigned rear skirt with Ferrari-like diffuser. However, the performance gains for the small engine Fiat 500 Abarth are jaw dropping.

In celebration of the second anniversary of the UK launch of its popular 500 city car, Fiat brought a unique collection of special edition 500s from all over the world to its Marylebone showroom in London. These include the 500 Capri by Castagna, the 500 Valentino Rossi, 500 by Andy, 500 Diabolika, 500 Ron Arad, 500byDiesel, a racing Abarth 500 and the new limited-run 500 Pink, which went on sale in the UK earlier this week.

Exploiting a moniker that’s usually held for race- or rally-bred sport cars such as our beloved Delta Integrale, Fiat introduced a mildly facelifted version of the Grande Punto in Frankfurt. To be known from now on as the Punto Evo, the Italian supermini gains a restyled front-end with a new bumper design that brings it closer to the 500 along with tweaked front and rear light clusters as well as a reworked rear bumper. These changes “stretched” the car’s length to 4,060mm, while all other external dimensions remain the same.

The ‘evergreen’ Panda 4×4 Adventure is the latest addition to the range of Fiat’s small off-road model. Available for order across Europe, the new series that comes with an automatic four-wheel drive system is offered with a choice of a 1.2-liter petrol engine with 60 horsepower and a 1.3 Multijet16V diesel that makes 70 horsepower. Prices in Italy start from €14,100 ($19,750 US) for the petrol model and from €16,000 ($22,400 US) for the diesel – now that’s what we’d call an ‘adventurous’ price range.

For this year’s Geneva Motor Show, Swiss tuner and concept car specialist Rinspeed has developed a modified Fiat 500 Abarth study badged “E2″ featuring a dual power mode system that affects the engine electronics. What this system does is, with the touch of a button, it reduces the output of the 500 Abarth’s 1.4-liter turbocharged engine, from 160HP to 60HP. The 60-horsepower ‘Commuting’ mode, which is more suitable for city traffic, helps the 500 Abarth achieve an average consumption of around 4.0 lt / 100 km or 58.8mpg U.S.