A Fiat for the future

The FIAT 1500 "6C" was our first classic car. We bougt it as the second owner in 1972. We made many trips as well abroad an our three daugters grew up with this "1500". In 2007 we sold it to the Italien collector Luici Lazzaroni who became a good friend and invited us every year to his Ralleys. When he passed away in 2013 we bougt the Fiat back from the family.
During this period, our Grand Children had fun with the old FIAT 1500.
After an entire restauration we participated in the 2014 Mille Miglia and a few years ago we found a new younger owner who enjoys it as we did.

Prior to the Airflow, I understand Walter Chrysler had a conventional american "sedan" installed in a wind tunnel for testing, it was found that the drag coeffecient was lower if it was turned back-to-front! Most "aerodynamics", especially today, is just gimmicky styling, the Alfa Romeo Giulia berline looked boxy, frumpy and old fashioned, but was crafted in a wind tunnel and the drag coefficient wasn't matched by regular cars until Audi in the 80s, aerodynamics isn't just "Buck Rogers" styling, as Kamm showed?

I too was a great admirer of the Traction, Citroen and Panhard, in general, having had many Deuche, Ami, BX, AX , XM, Visa etc and living here in Normandie. Despite my preference for Italian cars ( and Lancia pioneered the monocoque body with the Lambda?) I seriously considered buying one, until that is, I bought the definitive Traction tome and discovered the many serious defects in the Traction, monococque cracking, brake problems, driveshaft problems, gearbox problems, I already knew the engine was archaic, even for the 30s, asthmatic, and rough and the three speed box was an anachronism for any kind of "advanced " car, so £20 spent on the book saved me many thousands. I understand the demon tweek ,is to replace the box with an ID box, but why did Citroen not do this in the forties and early fifties, every test condemned the three speed gearbox? So no, we don't build air-cooled V8 rear engined cars, but that's not to say they weren't advanced in the Thirties, just progress took a different route, and it didn't seem to harm the 911 much?

My first ride in a Traction came when I was hitchhiking in France in 1969, toiling up a Normandie hill in the spring sunshine, I heard a vehicle climbing the hill behind me, and a strange organ music, when it drew level I saw it was a Tube (HY) driven by a guy my age (20) and the music was emanating from the back, where his chum was playing an organ they were transporting somewhere, with the "cat flap" open He gave me a lift to Rouen, still with the organ playing from the open rear door, where he swapped the Tube for his Traction, gave me lunch and a guided tour of Rouen! If onlyFrench cars still had that charisma and engineering, even if it wasn't always perfect, now they are just gimmick-laden junk. My Polish uncle had a new DS every year and loved them, the XM was a superb car but ruined even then by crap electronics?

The Lancia Aprilia Tipo 97 has a 1.4 liter V4 engine with a respectable 46.5 hp and a topspeed of 129 kmh or 80 mph. So it's not so slow after all. Weight is only 850 kg so that helps the car being relatively fast (for that time, but even today it's quick for a 1937 car.

I would prefer the Lancia Aprillia of halfway the 30's it's much more pretty from the front and from the back. Sorry but that Fiat nose is out of balance. Ofcourse the Lancia has no 6 cylinder engine but heey performance isn't everything right?

But the Peugeot 402 series had archaic, primitive mechanics, beam axle, cable brakes etc, so the engineering was only skin deep?And, like the Pug and Chrysler, they back-pedalled later in the Thirties to a more conventional front end? I think the" beauty" of the Airflow bodies was greatly overrated, like Riley with those hideous "fastback" bodies that replaced the vastly more attractive earlier models, people voted with their cheque books and didn't buy these "more advanced" cars? Now the Tatra, that really was advanced!!!

It's hard to believe that this Fiat was so slow compared with MG saloons of the time (some with smaller engines, too). The pre-war one and a half litre MG VA was capable of 80 mph with no pretence at aerodynamics. Was this Fiat really only capable of 70 mph?

The pillar-less FIAT looks remarkably like a Lancia. The Lancia predates the FIAT and this 1500 in the use of unibody construction by a good decade.

Shades of the French Peugeot's of that era, the 202, 402 etc - the continental stylists were way ahead of the UK stylists in terms of modernity!

It is interesting that its fellow Italian sedan the Lancia Aprilia managed an efficiency of 0.47 and a better top speed, the Fiats externally mounted tyre is probably the cause of its higher cd.

I had the pleasure to come across this magnificent survivor on the occasion of the "Classic Days" at the moated castle of "Schloss Dyck" in the lower Rhine area in Germany in 2018. The Fiat 1500 sold rather well in Germany in the 1930s and to me it was - in almost every respect - one of the best cars of its class available on the European market, back then.