On July 4, 1957, Fiat unveiled its “Nuova” 500, the tiny car that brought the freedom of the road to millions. Created by the automotive design genius Dante Giacosa as a replacement for the 21-year-old Topolino (“little mouse”), the 500 was intended to be an affordable and practical car that would get the country moving. And to see just how well it met the brief, take a look at the 1969 film classic The Italian Job in which the streets of Turin positively teem with Cinquecentos. And to see its legacy, take a look at the successful, award-winning relaunch of the 500 in 2007.
Between 1957 and 1975 3.8 million classic Fiat 500s were sold. It’s not known how many survive, but anyone who has passed through Italy in the past 50 years will undoubtedly have seen many, whether continuing to provide sterling service on the roads, tucked away in barns and garages or abandoned in alleyways and fields.
And because so many 500s survive — combined with the model’s continuing usability and appealing character — the company Real Italian Cars was born.
Founded last year by the property developer Amedeo Provenzali, the rally driver Mattia Vita and the Anglo-Italian Pirelli tyres PR Anthony Peacock, RIC sources Fiat 500s, takes them to its workshop outside the Tuscan town of Lucca and strips them down to their bare bones.
From there the cars are meticulously rebuilt, either to original specification or to an individual client’s requirements — which can mean incorporating anything from bespoke upholstery to special paint finishes, luggage racks or engine and transmission upgrades.
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The work is carried out in a large and distinctly low-tech concrete building halfway up a mountain. It’s an Aladdin’s cave of Fiats and all the parts anyone could ever need in order to keep one running, and it is the domain of Nello Bechelli, a 78-year-old who has been working on the diminutive cars ever since they could be bought new back in the 1960s.
When I arrived at Bechelli’s dark and dust-covered premises he was gazing at the back end of an “Agip Yellow” 500, listening intently as its 479cc twin-cylinder, rear-mounted engine emitted a cartoon-like cacophony of pops, bangs and backfires. It was missing a clutch cable, and the driver’s door didn’t appear to be attached.
“That’s one of the two we’ll take over the mountain when you’ve finished looking around,” Peacock said in what I took to be a statement of hope rather than expectation.
But within 15 minutes Bechelli had worked his wizardry. The engine was running with watchlike smoothness, the clutch was fully operational, the driver’s door was closing with a satisfying clunk and we were ready for the off.
Vita and Provenzali took Agip Yellow, while Peacock and I shoehorned ourselves into a “Coral Red” 500R, one of the stop-gap models produced from 1972 to 1975 to dovetail with the introduction of the Cinquecento’s replacement, the 126.
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At this point it’s worth mentioning that my very first car was an example of the 500’s slightly bigger brother, the 600D. I bought it for £15 from a jockey when I was 14 years old and too young to drive. It was a non-runner and remained that way until I sold it — meaning I never drove it, and, until my encounter with Real Italian Cars, I had never driven a 500 either.
The plan to traverse an alpine pass to make the scenic run down the other side to the coastal town of Forte dei Marmi seemed to me a bit optimistic, so it was a surprise to discover just how incredibly willing the little 500 really is.
Despite producing a meagre 15 horsepower (yes, 15), the cars can hit 60mph and, as we proved, happily pull two grown men up a mountain given plenty or revs and an equal amount of patience. Rather like a Citroën 2CV engine, the air-cooled twin feels unburstable, and even though you’ll never be going truly “fast”, anything above 30mph feels thrillingly quick.
And it’s because the 500 is a truly usable classic, Peacock says, that RIC has sold no fewer than 50 in its first 12 months of operation. “We have sent them all over the world, from Hawaii to Abu Dhabi, from Sweden to Australia and from the UK to Spain,” he says.
“Buyers come from all walks of life, with some wanting a 500 as a fun car to keep at a holiday home and others to drive on a daily basis as a way of navigating ever more congested cities — because they are small, nippy and easy to drive, they are as practical today as when the streets of Rome were rammed with them sixty-odd years ago.”
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Also adding to the 500’s appeal is the fact that it is a simple car to “understand”, both mechanically and in terms of model variations.
The original 500D featured rear-hinged “suicide” doors. Then came the 500F with conventional, front-hinged ones (1965-68), followed by the “L” for Lusso (1968-72), which had extra chrome, better upholstery, reclining seats and the luxury of carpets.
The run-out model was the aforementioned R (for Rinnovata), which got a synchromesh gearbox, while variations on the theme that were produced across the car’s lifespan included the rare, open-topped Spiaggina, the Ghia Jolly beach car, the Giardiniera station wagon and the souped-up Abarth competition model.
And while RIC specialises in the prolific basic 500 (which costs from €9,000, or about £7,700, fully restored), the team will source and rebuild any of the variants named above up to the rarest and most sought-after models, which can carry price tags of as much as €30,000.
Whichever one you choose, however, one thing is guaranteed: driving it will make you seem a whole lot more Italian.
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Just remember to gesticulate wildly while at the wheel, drive as closely as possible to the car in front and use the rearview mirror to regularly check your appearance between bouts of weaving in and out of traffic ….
realitaliancars.com
