Today’s Post by Joe Farace
A Fiat Panda, it’s the best car in the world.—Luca Cordero di Montezemolo—former chairman of Ferrari
Regular readers of this blog know I have a thing about Fiats. Don’t ask me why; I really don’t have an answer other than its related to nostalgia for two Fiat cars that owned back in the day. My first Fiat was a red 1968 850 Coupe that cost me $1667 brand new and was the best and, as hard as it is for some of you to believe, was the most dependable Italian car that I ever owned. On the strength of that positive ownership experience, I purchased a 1970 Fiat 850 Spider convertible from the same dealership. It cost me $2049 brand new and was the worst Italian car = I ever owned. As I was driving it home from the dealers where I just bought it it broke down on the highway.
About The Fiat 850
The Fiat 850 was a small rear-engine, water-cooled rear-wheel-drive car that was manufactured by Fiat from 1964 to 1973. In addition to the sedan that’s shown in the featured photograph at right, the 850 was a family of cars that shared many core technical components:
- Fiat 850 Special, a “sport sedan” version of the 850 sedan, that was launched in 1968 and like my 850 coupe had a 47 hp engine.
- Fiat 850 Familiare had space for seven passengers in three rows. Think of it as a mini minivan.
- Fiat 850 Coupé was introduced in 1965 and had a top speed of 84 mph. I loved my 1968 Coupé. Funny thing: during all the time I owned the car it never felt slow to me.
- Fiat 850 Spider had an engine tuned to produce 49 hp allowing it to reach a top speed of 90 mph. The lovely body was designed and built by Bertone. My own 1970 Spider was a disaster and I ended up trading it for a brand new 1971 Porsche 914.
How I made this photograph: The above image was photographed at a previous Automezzi Colorado car show. The photograph was made using the late and lamented Samsung NX1 mirrorless camera. While Sammy never got the memo on the size and configuration for mirrorless cameras—they were not alone on this— the camera produced stunning image quality. The lens was a NX 16-50mm f/2-2.8 (at 24mm.) Exposure was 1/640 sec at f/6.3 and ISO 400.
PS: For another take on nostalgia, please read my post “Nostalgia Ain’t What it Used to Be.”
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