Chery Tiggo 4 PRO vs Fiat 500X

What's the difference?

Chery would likely prefer you forget its initial foray into the Australian market, but doing so would do a disservice to the brand.

We don’t need to go into the nitty gritty of what went wrong back then, but needless to say the first Chery models of around 15 years ago were not particularly good.

Since its return in 2022 Chery is unrecognisable from that first attempt at cracking this market. The Omoda 5, the first model of its relaunch, was flawed but light years ahead of the earlier models in terms of design, presentation and build quality.

It has since expanded with the larger Tiggo 7 Pro and Tiggo 8 Pro Max SUVs and then in late 2024 it added this, the Tiggo 4 Pro. This is Chery’s answer to the likes of the Hyundai Venue, Mazda CX-30, Toyota Yaris Cross, etc in what’s known as the ‘light SUV’ segment.

Chery had a very good 2024, more than doubling its sales, so there are clear signs the brand is enjoying far greater success with its second attempt in Australia.

But is the Tiggo 4 Pro worth buying, if you’re in the market for a compact SUV? Let’s answer that question as we go through all the details.

Fiat's indomitable 500 is one of the great survivors - not even VW's recently deceased New Beetle could keep riding the nostalgia wave, partly because it made itself just that little bit out-of-touch by not being a car anyone can buy. The 500 avoided that, particularly in its home market, and is still going strong.

Fiat added the 500X compact SUV a few years ago and at first I thought it was a daft idea. It's a polarising car, partly because some people complain it's capitalising on the 500's history. Well, duh. It's worked out well for Mini, so why not?

I've driven one every year for the last couple so I was keen to see what's up and whether it's still one of the weirdest cars on the road.