I’m not sure exactly how I ended up finding this strange little car that was once for sale back in New York City, circa 2018. That was when the world was still a pre-pandemic Utopia and everyone was obsessed with the, um (googles) royal wedding, but I have now found it and seen it, and there is no going back. There was the world before I’ve seen this strangely modified 1971 Fiat 500, and now I live in the world after I have seen it. And the truth is, I’m not sure how I feel about that. So I need your help. To truly understand how I should feel.
As you can see from that picture, this isn’t an ordinaryFiat 500, though the truth is that in America, there are no ordinary original rear-engined Fiat 500s (they’re super rare; “ordinary” is not the right word. But the classic Fiat 500 is still known and understood despite its rarity thanks to its adorable, friendly little round-lighted face — a face that looks plucky and eager and ready to go on all manner of adventures with you:
And then we look at the Fiat 500 presented to us here:
If you want to do a spit-take, I think that’s fair. Here, get a big mouthful of your beverage. All good? Okay. Now, look:
Aw, you got me all wet! Well, it’s okay, because I get why: Look at that thing! We have six major rectangular lamps going on here, with a 4:2 clear headlamp to yellow foglamp ratio [Ed Note: Jason, that’s just a 2:1 ratio; you gotta reduce! -DT], and then a pair of indicators, just for good measure. Fiat 500s are so slow that I’m pretty sure if you turned them all on at once, all those photons shooting out forward would act like a retrorocket and bring you to a stop, eventually.
More importantly, what is going on with that front end? Aesthetic choices aside, it looks to be too well-made to be some home hack job; was this an aftermarket thing? Unfortunately the copy of the ad itself just brings up more questions:
“Great deal this car is definitely money make not money loss my selling price is very low! Up for sale 1971 Fiat 500 special edition limited production with the 4 headlights very rare in US! Car was import from Milano Italy the 595 engine it runs good the 4 speed transmission it shift good. The interior is red and is in good shape, the body has some minor rust underneath the spar tire and one spat on left side rear floor noting major also as you see the picture she could use new paint job or just fix the fuel problem check the brakes and drive as is! Car was run and drive but since it was sitting for a year the engine not start, she will start and run by spray start fluids in carburetor i put the new fuel filter but no gas come out the fuel filter possible the fuel tank need to be clean. Ask $3,200″
So, according to this strange paragraph from five years ago, the claim is this was a “special edition limited production?” Like, from Fiat itself? If that’s the case, I have yet to find any shred of documentation or evidence, but I guess it’s just barely possible, with the only bit of supporting evidence being that it exists at all? I’m skeptical.
The car was in pretty rough shape overall, but it all seemed to be operable, at least a bit. This picture of what’s needed to get it started I respect a lot, for its honesty:
I guess you can think of the can of starting fluid as like a form of security, an extra thing needed to make the car run?
Surprisingly, the interior isn’t in too bad a shape:
The trunk situation is a bit rough, especially because I think someone replaced the flatter factory tank with that very cylindrical-looking larger tank that eats up more of the scarce cargo room under that stumpy hood:
Around back, we see the Italian tri-color stripe continues its voyage all the way down the car, where it has seemingly pushed the license plate light and mounting down to the bottom of the engine lid:
Still, while the rest is a bit tatty, it’s all still pretty normal Fiat 500 stuff – and you get a box full of more Fiat 500 stuff:
But even that box of fresh, still plastic-wrapped taillights can’t make us forget about That Face:
Why? On one hand, a huge part of the charm of the 500 is its face! But then I look at this a bit more, and it oddly grows on me. The more aggressive look, those determined rectangular lights, the fact that there’s likely more light surface than metal surfaces on that front end, or at least a pretty even split, all of these make me wonder if this bonkers front end is, in fact, cool?
I mean, it kind of is! Especially on this tiny little car, it gives it a nice unhinged, determined quality, like how I imagine the character of a wolverine trapped in your pants might be. I’ve sort of seen similar strange face-swaps on VW Beetles, too, and they rarely work out, if we’re honest:
But this, this somehow feels a bit different? I saw it and first felt digust and dismay, and then it started to warm up to me. Our resident pissy designer, Adrian, disagreed:
I guess those are valid points, too.
So what do you think? Let’s discuss in the comments, get a lively debate going, maybe someone ends up in tears. Just for the drama, you see.
What is it with weird faced Italian cars today? Jeez. Let’s say it’s at 80% on the way back to cool. But it’s definitely not there yet.
Wow was the description written by AI trained with 3 stooges scripts!
The explanation is simple: Back in the 70s, everyone collectively lost their minds over rectangular headlights. After decades of forced lighting constraint due to government mandated round headlights, any new change was heralded as revolutionary and modern whether it actually made sense or not. That’s why everyone went nuts for quad headlight setups when they were legalized in the late 50s.
And then the 70s happened, and rectangular headlights entered the scene. Nobody questioned whether they were good, they were new and thus automatically more modern and exciting. Everyone wanted rectangles, round was out and corners were in.
Look at hot rod magazines from the era and you’ll find all manner of disturbing modifications to older cars to retrofit rectangular lights where they were never meant to be. A ’32 Ford roadster or ’67 Camaro with rectangular headlights looks backwards and wrong with the benefit of hindsight, but people were blind to it back then, due to their excitement over new headlight shapes. Even more so when quad rectangular lights became a thing.
I can totally see someone with an old Fiat 500 and some fiberglassing skills getting caught up in the rectangle mania and wishing to appear cool and modern in their choice of illuminated shapes, cutting off their Fiat’s old face to replace it with the most modern nose they could envision.
Now it seems a shame to butcher what has become iconic, but this is a relic of a different time, when the future was boxy and things like this were legitimately cool.
As one who likes, owns and daily drives weird vehicles and smaller cars I find this…..’interesting’ .
Please to remember that in matters of taste, everyone else is wrong .
The work here looks pretty well done, maybe it was some sort of kit long ago ? .
The advert is highly suspicious, clearly English isn’t the seller’s forte .
I find the price to be rather high but I imagine I’d have lots of fun with this car getting it running again and well sorted, maybe even a $500 re spray to make it look less, uh, abandoned I guess .
The site seems to have no adverts newer than 2020 ~ is it still going of just one more abandoned and mostly forgotten website ? .
-Nate
More functional than the original and just a simple aftermarket bolt-on by the look of it. You could easily replace it with an original panel, which I believe I would do. Plug and play methinks. That front would scare a cat.
For some reason, this thing’s face reminds me of the robot V.I.N.CENT from Disney’s The Black Hole (https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/V.I.N.CENT). So, cool… I guess. Or, umm… whaaaat?
IIRC photons have no mass, so there is no “recoil” from shooting photons. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.)
Photon drives are a thing, and so are light sails.
It’s been a long time since I studied physics so I’m in no position to explain it, but apparently photons can have momentum without mass.
Photons have momentum – https://phys.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/College_Physics/College_Physics_1e_(OpenStax)/29%3A_Introduction_to_Quantum_Physics/29.04%3A_Photon_Momentum
It’s bad, like the shit is bad. The shit aint worth shit.
Wow it’s hard to kill the 500’s cuteness but somehow they succeeded.That’s definitely ugly.
BTW it looks like it was switched to propane at some stage,then forceably converted back to liquid fuel- because that tank still has it’s big gas line shielding hoses.
I like it! I think it looks way better. Would like to see something similar done to the rear to match.
xB wanna B
I think it was 3D printed from a Pixar model.
*Looks at image of frunk gas tank in this thing*
*looks at homemade frunk gas tank in earlier i3 story*
I think I’ll take that i3, thanks.
It is ugly, but I sure do like it. 🙂
I feel like I’ve seen one like this before either at some oddball car show or in Italy, but I don’t know for sure. Seems like something I would have assumed was an aftermarket kit or “modernizing” end-of-run production mod to drum up interest, like a Mini Clubman.
Okay IMHO it looks better but is still fugly.
Seems well done, but ugly. Is this a US bumper mod by the factory? Seem almost like it’s factory. I like more lights than less, but this made this worse, IMHO, and is not growing on my like the many other gross things right now. And, I didn’t know this really existed until you posted those beatle pics… just wow.
No. Just no, full stop. The square sealed beams kill it.
It looks quite well done. Like it’s a 1988 model made under licence in Argentina.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned how off-center that stripe is…
Off center stripes were a thing in the 60s and 70s.
True, but usually they were off center down the whole body, not just on the nose. Looking closer, it appears that the new front end itself is a bit off center. Maybe old damage on the driver’s side front corner?
It’s a Suzuki SC100 in Halloween drag.
This is a parallell univers 500, where a close-to-bankrupt Fiat didn’t have the resources to tool up the new 126, and could only scrape together funds for a half-assed glass fibre redesign of the front 500. They had already ordered thousands of the square headlights for the now canned 126, so the Italian master Dante Giacosa’s last work before his retirement, was to facelift the 500 with the square headlights.
The Fiat obviously looks terrible. I hope that is reversible.
I don’t like face transplants on classic Beetles, but I kind of like the blue one on the bottom left. The grafted face makes it look like a Beetle from an alternate universe where VW updated the styling over time.
Look how they massacred my boy… Oh Topolino, what have they done to you?!
Sure, destroy any number of cars that started out ugly, but the 500 is one of the cutest cars of all time! What kind of a monster would do such a thing?
I’m pretty sure that Topolino was the nickname for the 500’s predecessor, because it looked a bit like a mouse (which the 500 does not)
Thanks Captain Pedantic. I know that but I was using poetic license. It may not technically be a Topolino (Italian name for Mickey Moust) but it’s cute enough to be one!
Topo con denti sporgenti?
Give it to me! I’ve long wanted to start a shelter for lost, unwanted and abused Italian heaps and this one would DEFINITELY qualify to be taken in. Come here sweetness, mama will make it all better…