There are cars that I love for their styling, some for their complexity and sophistication. Others I love because they were launched well ahead of their time, on a public that didn't understand them. Some cars are products of brilliant style, others are marvels of engineering but only very, very few are masterpieces of simplicity in packaging.
To document the history of one of the most familiar cars ever built would be futile and boring, exept to not that the car was launched in 1957, and produced with a series of detail modifications until 1975. The Fiat 500N as launched in '57 is the car credited with making Italy upwardly mobile. In an industrialised nation with a booming population, Fiat saw the opportunity to take the masses off their scooters and into 'proper' cars.
The Italians are responsible for the most beautiful cars ever built, but they are cars with short briefs - supercars, with the necessity to carry only two passengers, a small amount of luggage; the vehicles cost and thirst not often being relevant. Today, 52 years since the car's launch it still serves to demonstrate that the best designs are the simplest, the most straight forward and that form can follow function, yet still speak volumes in terms of style.
It is very difficult to think of a car with less mechanical complication that this one. An air-cooled, vertical twin of less than 500cc in capacity is mounted longitudinally in the chassis and drives the rear wheels via a 4-speed transaxle. The engine is cooled by an 8 inch fan incased in a duct that directs air over finned cylinder barrels, the same air is filtered and supplied to the carburetor to prevent icing. The same air again can be directed, at the discretion of the occupants, into the cabin for warmth. Less than 20hp provided a cruising speed of around 80km/h and simultaneous ignition strokes on both cylinders offered just enough torque to make the car useful in urban areas, and when laden with passengers and some luggage. Some detail changes over the years made the 500 slightly faster, but most made the car generally more robust and as a result, ever cheaper to run.
The simplicity continues; at the rear with coil springs and dampers controlling swing arms and at the front a single, transverse leaf and a kingpin at each side make do. Peer under the front valance and you'll find a steering box, rods and a master cylinder for the braking system. Electricity is provided by a dynamo to the car's few accessories.
All specifications considered, it is always fascinating to then drive one and marvel at how these diminutive commuter cars, built to such a utilitarian specification can thrill the driver in such a sporting way! Can this be the reason that the Fiat Cinquecento is so revered today by the cognoscenti and the casual observer alike? Is it because Giacosa managed to exercise the ability to satisfy the needs of a bottom-end of the market car and make so beautiful and timeless to look at?
Today's fascination with retro-models and re-inventing the hardest-hitting and most produced cars of the century past is not an indication of how good the 500 was. We have after all seen reinterpretations of the Mini and the VW Beetle as well as Fiat's new 500, but in dimensional and stylistic terms, the new 500 is the closest to its namesake of the cars mentioned and I think that although that might undermine the reason I am writing about the car, it might also serve to demonstrate how right they got it first time round.
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