Hello Henri!

23 May 19 14:26, you wrote to me:

My brother started in 1980 wit an Alfa Sud,
you know that 4 cyl. 4 stroke boxer engine with frontwheeldrive?
Marvelous engine.

That was a winning project, the engine was powerful and reliable, the road holding and handling where never seen before in a front-wheel drive, but them had a killer problem, in short time them vanished for the rust. :(

I have heard the personal at the carworks were angry,
and made the products of lesser quallity than possible to force the management to pay more salaries. You know that story?

It was a major Italian issue in the '70s, the class fight between workers and masters was strong and this was a way to fight (the wrong way imho).

My father bought in 1976 when I was the first person with a driving license a 1973 model Fiat 128. The engine was marvelous, but also
there the rust was the big problem in the sixties and seventies.

The Fiat 128 was a really popular model in Italy, overall a good car.
The rust was a common problem in all Italian Cars in the range of '70-'90 years.

I owned also a Fiat 126 (my first car),

That's the car with the engine at the back.

It was the model that come in place of the fiat 500, it had the same engine type and displacement, two cylinders air cooled, back displacement and the mechanical starter (a small lever placed on the floor of the car that pulled a cable that phisically link the starter electical engine to the flywheel like the fiat 500), look at this: https://youtu.be/_Y6z4UyhPKA
The second lever is the "choke".

A really fun car! :)

Did not they call it the Bambino ?

Never heard in Italy.

After we sold the Fiat 128, we were not interested in Fiat anymore.

You did the right choice. ;)

Ciao!
Fabio

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Hello Fabio,

On Friday May 24 2019 09:21, you wrote to Henri Derksen:

It was the model that come in place of the fiat 500, it had the same engine type and displacement, two cylinders air cooled, back
displacement and the mechanical starter (a small lever placed on the
floor of the car that pulled a cable that phisically link the starter electical engine to the flywheel like the fiat 500), look at this: https://youtu.be/_Y6z4UyhPKA The second lever is the "choke".

My first car was a Fiat 500. Yes, I remember the two levers between the front seats beside the hand brake..

BTW, my mother's Renault 4 (La Reine) in which I learned yo drive also had a similar starter lever next to the hand brake. Same as the Renault Dauphine in whch I did tghe driver's test.

A really fun car! :)

Yep the Fiat 500 was a fun car. It carried me to many of the EU countries. France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Andorra, Monaco, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switserland, The UK, Ireland, Czecho Slovakia and Poland. I once dismounted the
engine, carried it inside my house boat to replace a valve. Then carried it back out and remounted it.

Unfortunately the Fiat 500 had a serious rust problem and it so it ended on the
scrao yard...


Cheers, Michiel

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