According to Google's AI, this Fiat brings out the most smiles (and women smile much more than men)

After the Large Panda, Fiat is continuing its rather unique experiment called «Smiles Per Hour» (SPH), a metric designed to measure driving pleasure by counting drivers’ smiles. And this time, it’s the Fiat 600 who’s willing to play along. The result is surprising: according to data collected using Google AI’s facial recognition technology, the Italian SUV seems to put a smile on its drivers’ faces significantly more often than the new Grande Panda.

The Fiat 600 brings a bigger smile to people's faces

Introduced a few weeks ago on the Grande Panda, the SPH metric is designed to assess drivers’ spontaneous reactions during real-world drives. Cameras analyze facial expressions and count smiles to generate an hourly score.

For the Fiat 600, thirty participants got behind the wheel under various conditions. The model recorded an average of 368 smiles per hour, compared to 258 for the Grande Panda. This significant difference puts the 600 42 % ahead of its little sister. According to Fiat, this result illustrates the model’s ability to create an emotional connection with its drivers. Kris Cholmondeley, director of Fiat UK, explains that this data constitutes «a clear measure of the pleasure experienced behind the wheel.».

Women smile much more than men

One of the most surprising findings of this study concerns the difference between men and women. Female participants averaged 508 smiles per hour, compared with just 200 for men.

In other words, women smiled more than twice as often while driving the Fiat 600. Fiat does not offer a specific explanation for this discrepancy, but this finding is undoubtedly the most striking aspect of this new study. Another interesting observation: the color of the car also appears to have an influence. Drivers of a blue Fiat 600 averaged 449 smiles per hour, while those driving an orange model averaged 321 smiles. The individual record even reached 646 smiles per hour, a figure that Fiat compares to the average number of daily smiles for a British adult.

A Creative Marketing Campaign for Fiat

Behind this study, of course, lies a marketing campaign designed to highlight the emotional appeal of Fiat models. The Italian brand believes that technical specifications and performance figures are no longer enough to explain a person’s attachment to a car. Still, this initiative also allows for an amusing comparison between the brand’s models. After the Grande Panda, it’s the 600 that takes the title of the «smiliest» Fiat in the lineup.

Fiat has already announced plans to extend this SPH initiative to other models in the coming months. It will be interesting to see if a Panda, a 500, or even a future sports model will manage to dethrone the 600 in this very unique ranking.