November 26, 2007

Old Fiats in their natural habitat.

On a recent trip to Rome I saw quite a few Fiats, as one might expect. These are some of the more notable ones.

Abandoned Fiat 500L:

















The quintessential Fiat. Cheap to buy and run, easy to work on, you can park it anywhere and it gets great gas mileage courtesy of a 499cc air cooled 2-cylinder. They were produced from 1957 to 1975 and they're still very common in Rome.

Seemingly abandoned Fiat 126. Turns out it wasn't and I got some interesting words from the owner for taking pictures of it:
















Introduced in 1972 to replace the 500, it never got as popular as the 500. They did make them in Poland until 2000 so that says something. I believe a British road test from when they were new said they had "an engine that managed to be frenetic but ineffective-- like a hamster trying to push a filing cabinet."

Fiat 850 Sedan:















This one appeared to be all original and was in beautiful shape. A real dream come true for me seeing as I've lusted after an 850 Sedan for years. Those were introduced to replace the 600.

1 comment:

andrew said...

The 850 in that setting is so quintessentially Italian that I can almost smell the pasta and hear the old white-haired lady yelling and shaking her fist.