tbm3fan sent me a link to a CL ad for this 1964 Fiat 1500 Berline, a model that was never sold in the US. This is a rare opportunity, not only for someone to buy this one, but to write up a car that has not yet graced our pages. It’s certainly familiar to me, as they were very common in Austria when I spent the summer of 1969 there. Fiats had always been popular there, and the 1300/1500 sedans were roughly the counterpart to a nice big American sedan in the US: Roomy, good performance, comfortable, and stylish.
It’s the last part that was a bit of a surprise when it first appeared in late 1961, as it marked a very stark departure from the Pininfarina-designed/influenced Fiats that preceded it. Gone were the very angular flat sides, pointy rear fins and high-mounted headlights, now replaced with the very distinctive horizontal character line that wrapped all the way around, thanks to the very influential 1960 Corvair.
Just two years earlier in 1959, Fiat’s 1800 had arrived with all the classic Pininfarina-inspired hallmarks, although it was designed by Fiat’s own Dante Giacosa. It’s obviously also in the mold of the PF-designed Peugeot 404 and the whole range of PF sedans by BMC at the time.
As I’ve written about in considerable detail here, the 1960 Corvair was a smash sensation when shown at the Paris Auto Show in September of 1959. No one had ever seen anything like this, stylistically (the rear engine was no big deal). It was the one and only time when Detroit upstaged the Italians, as normally they were the trendsetters that Detroit copied or gleaned for inspiration.
The Corvair set off a rash of copy cats as well as cars heavily influenced by it, for many years to come yet. The Fiat 1300/1500 was the second new car to arrive in Europe with Corvair influence, after the restyle of the NSU Prinz. The Fiat was not a blatant crib like the Prinz, as it had some unique features, especially its C Pillar. But the key elements are all there, right down to the “Flying Wing” of the overhanging rear roof.
Obviously the proportions are a bit different, as the front engine RWD Fiat was a much more relatively upright sedan, with 53.7″ of height compared to the Corvair’s 51.3″. It looks even taller, since it was significantly shorter and narrower. The 1300/1500 slotted in just above the 1100/1200 and below the 1800/2100.
It was ambitious technically as well as stylistically. Under the hood was a new four with an alloy hemi head operated by pushrods. The 1300 (1295 cc) made 60 hp, and the 1500 (1481 cc) upped that to 73 hp, keeping the tradition of brisk Fiat sedans that almost invariably outran their German competition.
As was the tradition, the spider version (CC here) was commissioned to Pinifarina, both to design as well as to build. It was classic PF, evoking the Ferraris of the time.
Rather advanced for a mainstream sedan in 1961, the 1500 had front disc brakes.
It should be noted that the Fiat 125, although major elements of its body mid section are from the 124, its floor pan and suspension is from the 1500. And the similar-looking Polski Fiat 125 actually used the engine from the 1500 too.
The front compartment of the 1500 looks quite typical for a mid-range European sedan at the time. And like the Peugeot 404 and others, its four speed manual was shifted from the column.
The 1300/1500 was 60.8″ wide, which makes itself apparent in this shot. Visibility was of course superb.
The back seat would have been cozy for three, but I can assure you that was an all-too common reality back then in Europe. This car would have been way over the purchasing power of the overwhelming majority of Italians at the time, most of whom still hadn’t bought their first car yet, which would almost invariably be a Fiat 600 or 500.
Meanwhile, in Germany this was just a step up from a VW, and would have competed directly against the Type 3 VW (1500/1600), which it would run circles around too. And of course the Opel Rekord and and Ford Taunus.
If you’re now intrigued, here’s your chance to buy this 1500. From the ad:
Thinking of selling my 1964 Fiat 1500 Berlina. 4 cylinder engine, 4 speed on the column transmission, front disc brakes, nice interior. This model was never sold in the US.
In 2015 I got this car back on the road and daily drove it for ~5 years. At that time I went through the engine (new head, pistons, etc.); new clutch; new brakes with calipers rebuilt by Goldline; radiator cleaned out, new tires, front end bushings; new gas tank; basically everything to make it a good driving car.
I’ve used it less in the last year or two, and its drifted back toward the driving project end of the spectrum. Has a million little things that can be addressed. Paint is fading, body has bondo here and there, and obvious surface rust on the roof and trunk. Not much rust but has a soft spot under the driver’s feet. Trans has an occasional bearing noise that has been there for years, but will need to be addressed eventually.
Its a fun uncommon car to drive while you work on it, with good parts availability. I just renewed the registration so its good through July 2022.
Asking $5500, make an offer and drive it home.
Related reading:
How the 1960 Corvair Started a Global Design Revolution PN
Opel Rekord and and Ford Taunus. 🙂
It even had interchangeable (left/right) headlight clusters, just like the early Corvairs
And a left hand/right hand drive swop for the dash.
Which the Corvair dash was likewise styled as, although I don’t think there was ever a right-hand-drive Corvair. Trying to pass off the tooling order as being for Holden was as close as they came.
The 1500 was sold in Uruguay for quite awhile and became quite common. It was quite peppy by the accounts of the time, and as Paul says, quite roomy.
Around 1963 it began to be produced in Argentina (no 1300), and a few years later a new series appeared, with larger taillights which forced the gas tank filler to the side, chromed grille, floor shift, a new dashboard, and probably some other differences I don’t remember. There were wagons and something called the Multicarga, a pickup. It went on being made to around 1968, when the Fiat 125 (in Argentina in those early years called the 1600) began production. I know most of that data from magazines and the huge amount of Argentine tourists that come to Uruguay whenever the exchange rate is good for them and no pandemics are in place. So my memory is not as accurate as for the versions that were actually sold in Uruguay, and I’m surely leaving out details that others will remember.
That is a very impressive car.
The design is light years ahead of Detroit and needed to have been taken as a model for future subcompact cars. The writing was on the wall with this car, and it is pathetic that no one at Ford, GM, Chrysler or AMC could read it.
Which makes we wonder – how could the company that produced a Corvair in 1959, fall so far back that it produced the Vega a decade later? Massive head traumas? Why would a company that produced a Corvair, not learn from it enough to produce a vehicle capable of seating four comfortably? What did GM do – throw everything about the Corvair into a shredder?
The European manufacturers and the Japanese manufacturers had an entire decade to bring their version of the Mini, the Corolla and the Corvair into the US market by 1968. What the hell was Detroit’s problem? No one could see why this kind of a vehicle was vastly superior to a Pinto with back seat butt cups and no leg room?
Mind boggling how Detroit slept while the rest of the auto industry evolved.
I’m not about to try defending the Vega or GM in general, but the US car market was radically different in 1970 when the Vega arrived than in 1960. Crash-avoidance, crashworthiness, postcrash-survivability, and emissions regulations applied to the Vega that didn’t exist when the Corvair came out—and many of those regs were harder for small cars to meet than big ones.
The Corvair and its’ more conventional competitors came about as a reaction to the 1957-58 recession, with European cars and the Rambler as essentially their only “role models” so to speak.
Conditions were much different when the ’71 subcompacts were being developed; incomes were at an all-time relative high, the Baby Boom generation was rapidly aging into the new-car market while much less eager to start families earlier than their immediate forebears (if, in retrospect, much more so than their own eventual progeny) and the car market had been segmenting for a decade. The subcompacts were intended as mildly-sporty cars for young singles and commuter “second cars” that would only occasionally be called on to carry four people. Even the Vega wagon (class-exclusive at launch, until Ford “The Wagonmaster” got caught flat-footed) was more about the “Kammback” styling and carrying its’ owner’s bulky gear according to the ads.
Fiat, of course, had no thought of the 1500 (or 124 and 125) being a supplement to a big car – by Italian standards it WAS a big car and the long hood/short deck styling considered essential by Detroit’s sales departments was to them a luxury reserved for the *carrozeria*-built coupe derivatives.
Interesting to note then the Fiat 1500 was also built in Yougoslavia until 1979 from what I read on Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_1300_and_1500#Zastava_1300_and_1500
I’ve owned two Alfa’s, including a Berlina, but never a Fiat. And this one is less than 100 miles away so the seller’s confidence in driving it home isn’t misplaced. Hmmm ….
Also sounds like a car that I could handle but then the question would be could I handle my wife’s ire with car #11.
The only reason I know this car exists:
I was about to post the same thing! This was a very common Matchbox model at the time.
These sold here as sedans and wagons in quite reasonable numbers, when Fiats were still considered a quality purchase. They needed to be: tariffs meant that as full imports, they were priced above high-trim Holdens or Falcons. In an economy where credit was nothing like as available as the US, the choice of a comparatively austere and small-engined car over the locals must have meant a commitment to the car itself. I haven’t the slightest doubt it drove much better, as the locals of then were pretty dire, and road tests praised the Fiat roundly.
Like many a Fiat, they seemed to do that thing of taking unexceptional specs, like pushrods and leaf springs, and make a fizzy car that performed well above what might be expected.
The scholarship of Dr Proff Neidermeyer enlightened me to the fact that the Corvair was quite seminal in Europe and Japan, but after much prognostication, I’ve also come to realize that of all the designs related to the Corvair, it is only the Corvair itself that I truly like. I noticed the beltline thing even as a kid, in Mazdas and others, but all of them were cars that I didn’t consider pretty. I’m not the only person to find, for example, the Neu Klasse BMW’s to be severe looking.
Perhaps this Fiat – another car I saw as a kid and winced a little – illustrates what the issue might be. The Corvair’s design was (surely) in part worked out in order to achieve the lowness necessary to maintain big-car proportion in a compact. All the other descendants are not that sort of height, with this Fiat demonstrating the relative awkwardness in the result. For one thing, the belt-line split isn’t hugging down low towards lowness, but up high, where it (metaphorically) might cut you. Sure, the old girl has a nose-down bum-up eagerness about it, but that is rather leavened by the slightly angry, eyebrowed face, and the too-bluff glasshouse. And it’s all a bit narrow. The Chev original had none of these issues, possibly excepting the eyebrow, and even that isn’t too pronounced.
I’m going to say that the only car ever to coming close to the GM original from its own style is the 2nd version BMW CS coupes, probably because the glasshouse is quite minimal in weight, though having just said that, the first sharknose ones illustrate the ugly face issue in extremis!
As a by-the-by, isn’t $5K for a driving and quite decent 50 y.o. old banger not a bad deal in today’s crazy market? It sure would be in Oz at the moment, where large piles of rust and one tyre are advertised for more than that.
Mid 1960’s NSU Prinz–
Even more For hair than Corvair .
editing tool is gone :
“Even more Corvair than Corvair”
Quite a find in the US, I suspect.
Interesting to see how quickly Fiat had this out with the Corvair cues – 2 years after seeing the Corvair, and adopting its radical style so completely seems like quick work and decision making.
Looks like a fun hobby car to me ! .
I know a fellow who’s a FIAT freak, he’s no longer driving his oldies but might appreciate this one .
-Nate
I have owned several of these Prinz 4s 2cylinder cars which were capable of 50 mpg and 70mph with their overhead cam and encentric cam drive were ahead of other engine and suspension designs at the time.
I still have a Prinz 4L which is still running but needs a bit of attention to rust in the wheel arches.
I used to race against a fiat 1500 with my NSU 1200 on the way home from work in the seventies.
Great memories.
They missed the chance to give it a Hofmeister kink–or would it have been a Giacosa kink?
My parent’s first Fiat, a dark gray 1500. Bought second hand in New Guinea, some time in 1965. It replaced a Hillman Minx, and was eventually replaced by a Fiat 125S in 1970.
Dad, sister Andrea & I, April 1967. I’m holding a Corgi 007 DB6.
Tone deaf branding for Aotearoa, as the Crusades are one of the great disasters of history. The New Zealand importer, Torino Motors, marketed the 1500 as the “Crusader” with knights Templar badging on the back. This pic shows the later large taillights too. The great performance for the time meant they were used in local traffic policing. Credit Baines Auction House (sold),
Yes I remember the Fiat Crusader 1500 they were severely overshadowed by the later 125 with its DOHC 1600 which had gobs more power and 1500s were really cheap to buy at one point in the late 70s now they are very rare.
Italian football was very popular in Sweden à l’époque. So the 1300/1500 were locally named Juventus, after Turin’s and Fiat’s own soccer club. A short commercial spot from when we still drove on the left side of the road.
https://youtu.be/mTglyYWppoI.