Photos: Left: The ultimate micro-racer for a shade under £80k, Right: The Highest specification 500 Abarth from Middle Barton Garage
As teenagers, millions will have begun their love of driving from the wheel of a BMC/Leyland Mini, in its various forms, but what, even smaller, is arguably now eclipsing that great British brand in terms of automotive retro-fashion? Produced between 1957 and 1975, the Fiat 500 ‘Nuova’ is variously described as cute, chic and cool, especially when buzzing down the Kings Road or parked outside smart restaurants in the vicinity of Piccadilly.
Suicide rear-hinged doors or an Abarth badge, of course, are a must for the purist, but prices for all the diminutive siblings of the Italian built models – Giardiniera estate, the slightly larger 600 and Multipla 6-seater – plus their Austrian cousins from Steyr-Puch, can be inversely stratospheric.
A west London purveyor of super-cars from the modern era, and classic Ferraris often priced in seven figures, offers shinier than new examples with all the right badges for about £45,000. At Race Retro, was probably the most respected UK specialist in micro Fiats – they’ve been looking after them for 28 years – Middle Barton Garage. What founder Tony Castle-Miller doesn’t know about restoring and tuning these tiny terrors from Turin really isn’t worth knowing. He, too, offers some high echelon examples, but the very best Nuova road car, ‘abarthed’ and elsewhere upgraded, just crosses a more reasonable £30k barrier.
However if you’d like the ultimate, such as his race proven 1966 Abarth 1000TC Corsa (to Group 5, 1970 spec.), you’ll be given back just five pounds in change from eighty grand.
It must be said that really excellent, more standard, Fiat 500s from both the aforementioned vendors are available at between £8k and £12k. So you can still have rear-engined fun, squeeze in three of your close friends and guarantee smiles from strangers for the price of a new, deadly dull, humble hatchback.
Contrast this with those stripped-out “Jollys” (no doors, no windows, a tablecloth roof and seats made by basket weavers) with which the major auction houses pad out their sales in sunny climes. They have fetched truly staggering sums; USD $88,000-$110,000, of late. So a ‘cooking’ Fiat 500 Nuovo with substantially more metal, glass, and fit for journeys other than to a beach or a round of golf, can still seem quite a practical purchase.
Article by John Godley.
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