You can rub your eyes in disbelief that this car has such a success. But if you look around, then the offer of vans with seven seats with all-wheel drive is quite limited. It's really a little crazy to want to drive with the larger family and plenty of luggage into the wilderness. But probably it's the idea of safety never to have an unsuitable transport vehicle for any purpose.

What the competition offers? Cadillac Escalade and Lincoln Navigator are significantly larger, Chevrolet Captiva smaller, the Citroen C Crosser/Peugeot 4007 and Mitsubishi Outlander, Kia Sorento and the Hyundai Santa Fe, too. The Hyundai IX 55 would have fit, but the is no longer available in Europe since 2012. The large four-wheel drive vehicles from BMW, Mercedes, Audi and e.g. Land Rover are playing in a totally different league.



We can now go on further with the Mitsubishi Pajero, Nissan Pathfinder and Toyota Landcruiser, but only one comes dangerously close to the Fiat Freemont, the Ssang Yong Rexton W. The is indeed a little shorter, but with a comparable diesel engine significantly cheaper. It has now also taken off its silly Mercedes grille. Only with the rear suspension, it still can not keep up. How well for Fiat, that only few people have dealt with this brand in Europe.

Perhaps that is one reason why Fiat has followed the Panda Cross with the Freemont. Because actually the Cross version (Fig. 14, 15, videos) is only a slightly nobler variant, e.g. with leather upholstery.Technically, there is no difference between it and the normal version. But the Cross-version differentiate the Freemont further.

So the success of the Freemont is yet to explain, it is priced lower than almost all direct competitors. Condition remains, however, that you want to drive with family and luggage in wilderness. However, Americans have so little awareness of space that the rear seat backrests equipped with good side guidance folded down in such a way, that remain together with the very back increased cargo area even with only 2 passengers just 791 liters up to the windows. 07/14