April 24, 2008

500 Giardiniera.


Here is a good example of the 500 Giardiniera I mentioned in the last post. This particularly nice example was parked in Rome last year.
From the B-pillar forward it's identical to a 500 berlina but the back is shaped different which helps it accomodate passengers with greater ease. It also solves one of the 500's biggest problem: luggage room, or lack thereof. The engine is rear mounted so the berlina's trunk space is limited to the front compartment which also has the gas tank and the spare tire. By mounting the engine vertically they were able to clear up a fair amount of trunkspace. Fiat also used this approach in the 126 when they replaced it with the 126 Bis.
Worth nothing, this is an early model that still has suicide doors.

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