(first posted 9/6/2018) There’s few things that make my day more than being exposed to a car that I never knew existed. CC reader Julieta L. sent me a couple of links to this delightful little car, the 1960 Siata Ampurias 750. Designed and built at Siata’s Spanish affiliate, which built this and apparently some other specials based on SEATs, or Spanish Fiats.
There’s very little information available on the Ampurias, except that it was of course based on the very popular Fiat/SEAT 600. But it largely speaks for itself.
The Ampurias was available as a 600 (633cc, 21.5 hp), or the 750 (735cc 31hp). Apparently most buyers splurged for the 750, which had a top speed of 120km/h (73 mph), not bad for Spain in 1960.
The interior is essentially the same as the donor fastback 600. It’s very familiar to me, as I rode in a number of these in Austria in the 50s.
The Fiat 600 was quite popular in Austria at that time, a somewhat cheaper (and smaller) VW, which it set out to be, obviously. It came before the even smaller 500, and unlike it, the 600 had a proper water-cooled inline four cylinder engine, and spawned a long line of rear-engine Fiat cars, all the way up to the 850 Spyder and other offshoots.
The SEAT 600 is considered the national car of Spain, as it played a huge role in putting that country on wheels after the war, like the VW did in Germany.
And just like there were numerous coach-built derivatives of the VW, so also with the Fiat/SEAT 600. But this has to be one of the cutest. And no, there’s no room in that “trunk” for anything other than its engine.
We’ve never done a really in depth look at the 600 and all of its many offshoots, but here’s what we’ve got on it.
Count me as another who has never heard of that. But my never having heard of it is not as surprising as PN’s lack of experience here. Or better, a longer front end.
The styling is fascinating, and I cannot decide. The deck seems too long to me, sort of in the style of big American cars of the 1950s. Except that this one is too small to pull it off. Maybe if that greenhouse went back a little farther?
Oh well. I love the inside, it appeals to my love of simplicity.
I’m guessing the deck is that long for the engine cooling air. See the underside of the lid in the picture I posted below – there’s some sort of air ducting there.
It’s so long for one reason only: prestige value.
The whole point of these custom bodied little Fiats was to make them stand out from the crowd of Plain Jane 600s, and they weren’t exactly cheap. American cars with their long tails were the hot thing in places like Italy and Spain, and this was their way of imitating that. And it the cheapest to show that you could afford a…butt augmentation.
IMO, it is not a case of the deck being excessively long, but rather the ludicrous disproportion between front and rear overhangs. The rear overhang by itself is not all that long in comparison to many other European small cars from the same time frame, but the juxtaposition with the Fiat 600’s front really makes it look overly long.
I’ve made some photoshopping to roughly adjust the proportions of this car to those of the BMW 700, another European rear-engined small car from late 1950s. It looks much more “normal” that way.
Good move – that would give you more luggage space too.
Here’s a peek at the engine, from 600 Tour Madrid, which has a number of wonderful Seat derivatives. Fan and radiator tucked alongside the inline four. Neat.
Very smart layout. Gives the same short rear overhang as VW, but also gives you a water-cooled inline engine with everything easily accessible from top and behind. No tricky wrench angles.
After seeing it, I wonder why nobody else copied the idea!
Plenty others copied it, or actually did it first. All the rear engine Renaults starting with the 4CV of 1949 had this configuration. Simcas. Imp. And a number of others.
The engine still hung out further behind than the VW’s, a a four cylinder inline engie is about twice as long as a four cylinder boxer. That was the whole point of the VW engine being a boxer, to keep the engine as short as possible to reduce rear weight bias.
Also, these water cooled engines had cats iron blocks, which made them heavier than the VW’s magnesium/aluminum engine.
Paul, considering the VW was a 1200cc, and this is a 600cc, are you sure the 600cc Fiat/SEAT weighed more than a VW? To be fair, one would need to include the radiator, hoses, fan and coolant.
The 600 engine weighed about 120-140 lbs; the VW 200+. But yes, adding on the radiator, fan, coolant, etc. would probably bring them fairly close to the same weight.
More significantly, since the VW was a substantially bigger and heavier car, the percentage of its weight on the rear was proportionately less. I can only imagine what the F/R weight ratio of this one was, with its extended rear end.
It brings to mind the Riley Elf, aka Austin-Mini-with-a-trunk.
In the case of the Elf (& Wolseley Hornet) the extra space was useable. Does this serve any purpose other than looking different? (Better cooling? Slightly improved rear visiblity?)
I thought that as well as soon as I saw it
The proportions – short front overhang, longer rear – remind me of some of the SuperStock drag racers of the ’60s. Or even a Mk 1 Jetta. I like it! By the way, I was curious about the Ampurias name, so I looked it up – it’s an ancient Roman city on the coast of Spain, which I realized i had visited in 2004, in my rental Renault Megane.
They kind of did the same thing as the Soviet engineers when they converted the Fiat 600 body into a notchback to reuse it for the ZAZ-965 (which has very different chassis & drivetrain, but still). With tailfins, no less. Both versions look somewhat tail-heavy and out of proportion, but the Spanish one is obviously the worse offender. I wonder what did they try to achieve by doing this. It seems that a lot of people liked the 600, but just couldn’t stand its fastback tail.
It could be interesting to photoshop a photo of the actual Fiat 500 as a notchback and compare it with the Siata.
I think its been done – wasn’t there a coachbuilt/small-volume version of the 500 like that?
Part of me (a pretty big part) says this is about as useless as that notchback VW….the one most people remember as the Squareback or Fastback (I can’t remember what the model/platform name is…Type 2 ? Type 3?).
And yet, another part of me wonders if the new Fiat 500L, that ugly blob of a car, wouldn’t have been better off as a 4 door version of this little 2 door?
Toyota Echo.
Having owned many Fiat 600/500s over the years this is a variation I’ve never seen before. Very Stylish!
Love those rear-hinged doors. The first of my SAAB 93 sedans had them too. A nice way to enter the car ?
I love how the long square tail looks out of place here. I just love the contrast. Siata did some other cool variations of the 600, like the Formichetta.
What a cute little Automobilette ~ I love the paint scheme too .
Anyone who thinks a VW Typ III Notchback is useless obviously never drove nor rode in one .
They out Beetled the Beetle . too bad they co$t $3,000.00 when a Beetle was only $1,895.00 .
-Nate
On a cuteness and charm scale, I’d give this car a 9.8 out of 10.
The interior looks like “slightly, upscale, lawn chairs. Car scores big in “cute” though.
Bet they rusted through, fairly quickly.
I’m not sure what the point of this is besides looking different. More rear headroom? Better rear visibility? Better engine cooling?
Are those taillights from an 1100? They look kind of familiar….
Then in 1965,Siata brought out the Tarraco,with a more modern body,when I was in Spain,or the Basque Country as a 7-year-old in 1970,I saw a couple of those running around.
I owned the very last car with this layout. It was a Spanish SEAT 133, and although it looked like a Fiat Bambino, it was actually bigger and had the water-cooled 800 engine. The build quality was very good, far better than anything that came from Fiat/Italy. I think that was because cars were seen as prestige projects in Spain during the dictatorship. You can also see that in the Santana Land Rover, which can easily compete with Mercedes in terms of quality.
Your first illustration evokes a spaniel streaking happily toward its owner–or its supper ?–with ears flying. An unusually-colored spaniel, that is . . .
Not sure but I guess there also was a panel version called Siata Formichetta, sort of a
Fiat 600 with little utility cargo loading capacity , one of the rarest minivans in history with a rear engine . Infact Siata Formichettas were produced in several numbers per year, most of them are collectible cars in the Spain`s market