Jayco Swan vs Abarth 124

What's the difference?

The Jayco Swan Outback is a nice solid camper, packed with features and suited for most trips away.

Sure, it's not the roomiest or flashiest camper around and – you've been warned – it is definitely not up to hard-core 4WDing, but it does come from a company responsible for sharply priced units with plenty of flexibility regarding optional add-ons so that counts for a lot.

The Abarth 124 Spider is a flawed but dramatic little car that should put a smile and a big, fat Italian moustache on any weekend warrior’s face.

As long as you don’t expect it to do much more than that in terms of its daily driving ability, it hits the nail on the head as a spicy alternative to the well-rounded MX-5 formula.

Whether it hails from Hiroshima or not is irrelevant. Its ancestors would be proud.

Now, if only all of them had this Monza Edition’s glorious exhaust…

Correct me if you reckon I'm wrong, but no camper-trailer from any company will ever be in the running for a 'Gorgeous Temporary Home' award. But that's part of this camper's appeal; it's highly practical and functional, not pretty and useless.

The forward bed is to the left as you step inside; the rear bed is to the right. Its kitchen is in front and to the right of the door as you enter the camper.

Interior height is a standard 2070mm and inside is spacious, but tempers will likely fray if all four adults and two kids are standing or sitting around inside at the same time. Hope for no rain.

The interior includes a four-burner stove, Dometic 95-litre fridge (Touring models get the 90-litre fridge), stainless-steel sink, dinette seat, table, club lounge, and the two beds plus the dinette-convertible bed.

If you can't find some places in which to stow away your gear in this Outback, then you're not looking hard enough.

The 'Ezi glide' pull-out drawers include room enough for your large pots, cutlery, kitchen gear and numerous other bits and pieces.

Interior lighting includes overhead LEDs for the dining/entertainment area and reading lights for the beds. There’s a fan for the beds.

When it comes down to a practicality score, it’s only fair to compare a car like this to its direct competitors. A sports car like this is never going to take on a hatch or SUV in the practicality stakes.

Even so, and just like the MX-5, the Abarth 124 is tight on the inside. I fit inside it perfectly, but there are problems.

Legroom is super tight for me at 182cm tall. I had to adjust to having my clutch foot at an angle, otherwise I’d smack my knee on the bottom of the steering wheel, a problem that also makes this car tough to clamber into. The handbrake takes up a massive amount of room in the limited centre-console space, and as to storage in the cabin? You may as well forget it.

There’s a tiny flip-up binnacle in the centre, shallow enough maybe for a phone and nothing else, a slot under the air-conditioning controls seemingly designed expressly for phones, and two floating cupholders between the seats.

There’s no storage in the doors, nor is there a glovebox. You do get a rather large storage area behind the cupholders, accessible through a hatch opening, but it’s a little awkward to use.

Once you’re in, though, this car fits like a glove in terms of ergonomics. The wheel is nice and low, the seats are surprisingly supportive and your elbow rests nicely on the centre, leading your hand to the excellent short-action shifter. Headroom is tight no matter which way you cut it, but it’s such a small car you hardly expect more.

How about the boot? It’s better than you might hope, but with just 130 litres on offer it’s still no more than a weekender. It’s also less than the Toyota 86/BRZ (223L) which also have back seats, always handy no matter how small they are.

There’s no spare to be found. The 124 has a repair kit only.

Jayco campers are easy to tow and the Swan Outback is no different. It towed steady and stable – no worries – behind our long-termer 2019 2.0-litre four-cylinder bi-turbo Ford Everest 4WD (157kW/500Nm).

We did decent stretches of highway, country back-road and gravel track, deeply rutted in places, with no strife.

The extra length (305mm) over its top-tier stablemates – Hawk and Eagle – was hardly noticeable and only took a little adjustment and increased vigilance when turning in between trees on pinched bush tracks.

With a 130kg towball weight, it feels marginally livelier than Hawk (145kg) and Eagle (150kg), but nothing drastic – again, as long as the driver pays attention there's no issue.

Visibility back along both sides and over the top is good without need for towing mirrors.

The single-axle Swan Outback has a hot dip galvanised 'Endurance' chassis on Jayco’s 'JTech' coil-spring suspension with a little extra ground clearance over road-focussed Touring models. (Note: Jayco’s Outback models are made for dirt tracks and gravel roads, not 4WD-only tracks. They are not built for hard-core off-roading.)

I drove the 124 up NSW’s Old Pacific Highway from Hornsby to Gosford at dusk on a Saturday. Talk about the right car in the right place at the  right time.

It was absolutely in its element, darting around tight hairpins, then blasting up straights, giving the short shifter a thorough workout. That new exhaust added 150 per cent to the theatre of it as each aggressive down-shift was accompanied by crackling, spitting and barking.

It’s an absolute joy, a proper nod to how cars used to be in the good old days of a ‘Sunday drive’, and thus a proper nod to the 124’s history.

And, of course, it has flaws. Many of them fall into the subjective category on a car like this, however.

Take the engine, for example. I’ve heard endless criticisms of it as laggy and annoying. And it is. Catch the wrong gear and get the revs too low and no matter how hard you stomp that go pedal, you will be stuck fighting a mountain of lag. Seriously. Several seconds of it.

Even trying to ascend my steep driveway had me concerned it was simply going to stall out in first gear.

It’s a bit strange, but then when you’re on the open road it’s worth relishing the challenge that it offers. Grab the wrong gear and this car will let you know how foolish you are. And yet, when you get it right it offers a surge of excitement in the straights that’s arguably far more dramatic than either the MX-5 or 86 can muster.

Another annoyance is the speedometer. It’s tiny and counts 30km/h increments all the way up to 270km/h. How fast was I going, officer? No idea. I have about two inches to tell whether I’m going between 30 and 90, so it’s anyone’s guess.

An obvious benefit of the MX-5 chassis is its go-kart handling, and it seems as though the excellent, fast and direct steering hasn’t been messed with, either. Sure, the suspension is a little crashy, and the convertible chassis a tad rattly, but it’s all part of being that much closer to the road. It would be tough to ask to find a better transmission with its fast, short action and sensible ratios.

Ultimately, the 124 is just plain (literally) old-fashioned weekend fun, offering a challenging but rewarding drive.