One of the nicest small sportscars of the sixties was the Fiat 850 Coupe. It was introduced in 1965 on the basis of the bland looking 850 sedan, and the in-house designers of Fiat turned into something special. The OHV engine received some extra boost, with a very nice exhaust system, and horsepower was increased from 34 for the standard 850 to 47 for the Coupe at 6250 rev/min. Maximum speed officially was 135 kph, but good ones reached 145 at which speed the engine was running close to 6500 revs.
At the same time the Bertone designed spider was also introduced, which even had a slightly more powerful engine, producing 49 Bhp, at even higher revs.
In 1968 the Series 2 version appeared which had double headlights and a 52 BHP 903 cc engine at 6400 revs this time.
Production stopped in 1971, and almost 343,000 cars were produced.
It was my fathers' first car and it arrived at about the same time as my drivers license. When delivered the car was fitted with crossplies, and it took me about 12,000 km of “sharp” driving to wear them off completely. The XAS radials that replaced them transformed the car. One of the options was to buy a large rev counter in the right hand clock of the instrument panel. I made sure my father spent the 150 additional guilders to buy that.
Shown here are two nice examples, one taken at Zolder in 2003, while the second car is no other than McReis’ immaculate example that has not fallen victim to the rust eaters, which are much rarer in Portugal than over here. I recently got it confirmed that my fathers’ car ceased to exist a long time ago.
"I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting, but it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously." Douglas Adams
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