FIAT COUPE & FIAT COUPE
THE BANGLES — A QUIRKY HIT
Tony Reid owns a couple of Fiat coupés — or, as the Italian marketing specialists of Fiat named the model, Coupé Fiats. The company has a long history of making striking coupé models, and, even if this one doesn’t fit everyone’s idea of beautiful, it is undeniably remarkable.
Tony’s answer to the question of why he owns them includes a story about going to buy a Lancia Beta Volumex coupé. At that point, he saw one of the Coupé Fiats among the crowd of cars for sale and bought that instead. Given the Lancia model’s propensity to end up as bucketful of rust flakes after a couple of years of ownership, he probably made the right decision.
The backstory
The story of these two Fiats, though, starts almost 100 years before they were made. It would not be unreasonable to imagine that the language of romance and opera could have given us something more imaginative than the word ‘FIAT’, standing for ‘Fabbrica Italian Automobile Torino’, as the name of its cars, but, today, the word ‘Fiat’ has taken on a life of its own.
Bangle’s design was as eye-catching as it was debatable at the time. From low down, the front is exquisite.
The company began making cars in 1899 and, as early as 1910, was manufacturing cars in the US. Since that time, it has become a giant of the vehicle manufacturing world, and of some non-vehicle manufacturing industries as well.
Nowadays, Fiat could arguably be called Dutch based; well, the holding company is registered in the Netherlands. The ensuing raft of companies is just bewildering. Only avid readers of the Financial Times or suchlike would stand any chance of understanding the business machinations that are today FCA Italy SPA — or ‘Fiat’ to you and me.
It is perhaps interesting to note that the family of one of the founders, Giovanni Agnelli, still owns about 30 per cent of today’s company.
The present
Trying to untangle the world of Fiat is like trying to unravel a plate of spaghetti, and the accompanying bolognaise sauce has more lumps in it than Mussolini did once his war ended. Pull on one end of a strand of pasta on your plate, and it will finish on another plate on the other side of the table.
Today, Fiat includes Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Fiat, Lancia, and Maserati, as well as Chrysler products such as Dodge and Jeep (Chrysler is the ‘C’ in FCA). Fiat’s other holdings include the world’s largest steelcasting company and one of the largest aluminium casting companies — handy when you make cars. Besides those, there are conglomerates of finance, banking, insurance, and media, to name just some areas of business interest.
The company has established activities in dozens of countries and controls some of the technical expertise used by almost all vehicle manufacturers.
It employs about a quarter of a million workers, and even has a manufacturing activity in North Korea, with pasta and noodles served in the workers’ canteen there.
The shark-like snout and the slightly raised bubble ‘eyes’ look as aggressive as they do well proportioned.
Local market
Here in New Zealand, Fiats have been on our roads for decades. Probably the first model that was seen in volume was the Fiat 500. It was known here as the ‘Bambina’, a name that was given to it by the local franchise but was eventually used internationally for Fiat’s mini car. The Bambina made its appearance here in 1959, a few years before local assembly began. Of
the almost 4,000,000 manufactured over the model’s life, more than 5000 were assembled and sold here.
Other iconic Fiat models in our market were the Fiat 1500, which, locally, had the now very un-pc name of ‘Crusader’. The very pretty 124 had its own single-make race series. There was also the 128 and the goodlooking 128 coupé. The 850 Sports coupé was also very attractive, but you must believe the writer when he says that they were much better to look at than own. At that stage, I thought ‘FIAT’ stood for, ‘fix it again tomorrow’.
Design and build
Fiat has specialized, it seems, in producing attractive coupé versions of some of its better-known saloon models. However, it seems that this feature car, designed by famed car designer Chris Bangle, isn’t one of them. Bangle also designed the Alfa Romeo 145 — a car that looked like the child of a small Alfa and a Honda Civic — and redesigned the complete BMW range between 1992 and 2009. At that time, he was also in charge of Rolls-royce design and the new BMW Mini.
Bangle’s design of the Fiat coupé is different; whether it could be described as ‘pretty’ probably depends on who’s talking. It is not a car that suits all tastes. Fiat had already turned down Pininfarina’s proposed design (that one went on to become the very goodlooking Peugeot 406 coupé) and decided to create this coupé in-house.
A car is born
The resulting car was produced in one series, but with various engine and other options, from 1993 until 2001. Bangle’s design was as eye-catching as it was debatable at the time. From low down, the front is exquisite. The shark-like snout and the slightly raised bubble ‘eyes’ look as aggressive as they do well proportioned. Similarly, the rear end view is of a very pretty Italian — remember, Fiat’s home town of Turin is also one of the centres of Italy’s fashion industry.
It’s really only side-on that one wonders a little about the look. It sort of retreats from the catwalk of the fashion industry and becomes a little more Italian village peasant in its stockiness. The slashes that grace both the front and rear quarters look as if the designer took to his model with a machete — a look that never really caught on, and that’s probably a good thing.
Similarly, the rear end view is of a very pretty Italian
The Pininfarina effect
Pininfarina did do the interior for Fiat, and it is very Italian in style. The dash area — a mixture of black and the body colour keyed into the fascia — is very attractive. Somehow, the dials on an Italian car manage to make the car look fast even before you’ve pushed that big starter button.
The Coupé Fiat was launched as a four-cylinder in 1993, and, by 1996, Fiat had released the five-cylinder, sixspeed, 20-valve version. This was also available as a turbo. Tony’s two cars are almost ‘best of ’ examples of these two different engine types.
The first is a 1996 turbo two-litre, 16-valve, overhead-cam version. This car has a development of the motor that Fiat engineered for the six times World Rally Championship (Wrc)–winning Lancia Integrale, so it is no slug. The car produces a very healthy 145.4kw and that goes to the road via a five-speed gearbox. Macpherson-strut front suspension manages the power, ride, and handling at the front, while the back end trails along on trailing-arm suspension. The Fiat-developed Visco Drive differential makes a very adequate job of controlling the way that power goes to the ground, and the car does not suffer from any noticeable power-induced understeer.
Remember, Fiat’s home town of Turin is also one of the centres of Italy’s fashion industry
Only a few minor details distinguish the two cars: badging, which includes the word ‘turbo’, or denotes the number of valves, is the only immediately visible clue as to which is which.
Fiat’s five-cylinder 20-valve model was released in 1996. This car had one more cylinder and slightly more power (164kw), but Tony’s is ‘chipped’ and now produces 176.7kw. This goes to the road through a six-speed gearbox. Apart from a slightly stiffer chassis, thanks to an extra strut, the chassis engineering remains the same as that of the first car. This model has a stronger brake set-up, and the interior appointments are uprated a little with leather and cloth seats.
The legacy
Fiats are Italian cars, and, as such, have a head start in the race to becoming a classic, but, without a doubt, the coupé is now well on its way to that status. A look around the cars-for-sale sites internationally testifies to this, and prices are on the way up.
These cars were, and still are, well considered by the cognoscenti. Both Michael Schumacher and John Barnard — he of Ferrari Formula 1 design fame — drove them. This no doubt had something to do with their employer at the time, but they both also had their reputations to manage, and would not have driven anything unsuitable. It’s obvious that, with this car, Fiat made something very suitable.
These cars were, and still are, well considered by the cognoscenti. Both Michael Schumacher and John Barnard — he of Ferrari Formula 1 design fame — drove them