Fiat 500
Dante Giacosa’s little car of 1957 – rear engine, fabric sunroof and the streets of Italy in pocket size.
Fiat’s chief engineer Dante Giacosa designed the Nuova 500 as a small, cheap car for Italy’s cities. The air-cooled two-cylinder engine sat at the rear.
Nearly four million were built, and the car became a symbol of Italy’s post-war boom. It got a successor of similar form in 2007.
Materials: Sheet steel, fabric roof
Manufacture: Mass-produced in Turin until 1975.
A small, rounded body with a rear engine and air intakes in the engine lid.
A fabric roll-back roof.
Early cars have front-hinged doors; after 1965 they open at the rear.
A very small body, round headlights, a fabric roll-back roof and, until 1965, doors that are hinged at the rear.
The Giardiniera from 1960 was an estate with a horizontal engine. Abarth made faster versions.