Because there previously wasn't a Fiat 1100 heading, I originally posted in 'Non-specific'
:
Millicento, anyone?
Just looked over the forum topics and didn't see the 1100 family listed (maybe I just didn't look hard enough)
; probably nobody believes there are any left, but there's one in Pasadena, CA---in my garage.
Notice, I didn't say there was one
running in Pasadena, though....maybe some day.
1959 1100/103d; 68mm x73mm, 1089 cc; cr 7.2:1, I think; with a whopping 40HP! Heater, yes; radio? nope! (you couldn't hear it anyway)
Like I said....maybe some day.
Jan. 10, 2011
:
My dad bought the car new in '59
; since I was only twelve, I didn't grasp the impact of his trading in his 1942 Buick Super (or was it a Century?) with Compound Carburetion---two 2-bbl Strombergs joined by progressive linkage
; the forerunner of 4-barreled carbs years later---a former fire-chief's car with rubber plugs in the roof where the lights had been removed, and overdrive (? I don't remember)
. The engine block alone probably would have made two Fiats
. 
Lots of odd features on foreign cars of vintage
; some fairly common (center-hinged doors--the fronts were 'suicide'
, column-mounted
4-speed
, priming lever on the diaphragm-style fuel pump in case you wanted to save the battery and starter) and some not so common (rubber-disc couplings in lieu of U-joints, and coil-spring motor mounts--the springs were molded into rubber, which served as dampers of a sort--they'll probably support the engine even if the rubber completely falls away in chunks)
.
Anyone have any stories? Observations? Did you like the car? Hate the car? Trade in twenty-seven of them for a Lamborghini emblem?