FIAT 500

The FIAT ‘Nuova’, ‘Bambino’ or simply the ‘500’ is one of the world’s most recognisable cars. In this essay we will look at the era and the country in which it came into being. Who was involved and what factors influenced its production? We’ll analyse the features of the design itself: aesthetic, materials-oriented and practical features of the 500. Also, we’ll assess the needs of 1950’s Italy and whether or not it met them.

Italy had suffered badly in World War II and in the aftermath the manufacturing and design communities adopted a ‘subsistence’ approach which strongly favoured prefabrication and standardisation to make the most of resources. While a traditional Milanese greeting can be translated as ‘Good Working Day’ according to Bosconi (2006) there is also a more widely held view:

“Italians are perceived as slightly amoral, politically and economically unpredictable, fun loving and in spite of everything, enviable”

Artistic flair almost predictably won out over austerity. No great surprise that there could be such polar shifts, as Italy’s political history scarcely gives a premier more than a year in power.

America’s influence in Italy in the late forties and fifties was substantial due occupying troops in the post-war period. Also, Italy was one of the war-torn European countries to receive millions of dollars in aid from the U.S. as part of the $12b ‘Marshall Plan’. America was keen to see the funded countries attain financial independence; they were happier to hand out fishing rods rather than keep supplying the fish. This involved mentoring by U.S. industrialists, particularly Ford, on how to make industry not only self-sufficient but also profitable. Funding was used to encourage industry with cheap power and credit while wages were kept low. It all worked very well – by 1949 output had returned to pre-war levels and by 1966 they had tripled it.

The American streamline style was adopted by the Italians but with a very different slant. While U.S. designers were predominantly from the advertising world (with the exception of one-time artist, Bel-Geddes), Italy’s leading lights were invariably fine arts trained. America’s streamlining was ostentatious and brash while Italy took the sculptural route, using ornament as a focus rather than wallpaper. But Italy’s industrial flexibility and prowess is not to be under-rated. They were the second nation to manufacture all-metal cars in 1918; only four years after America’s Dodge. With abundant mineral deposits to make aluminium and (to a lesser extent) steel, it seems a logical progression. Italian design expertise also outstripped America’s when Vincenzo Lancia was the first to unify the body and chassis design into today’s ‘monocoque’ in 1933 – by contrast, Britain was foisting horse and cart technology onto their public for another thirty years.

FIAT (Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino) was founded in 1899 by Giovanni Agnelli who was to champion the idea of the Italian ‘People’s Car’ – a concept working well for Volkswagen’s Beetle (Germany), the Austin Seven (Britain) and the Deux-Cheveux (France). While America is given much credit for post-war Italy’s success, Agnelli wasn’t just the beneficiary of hand-outs. He first visited the U.S. in 1906 and was determined to follow Ford’s lead. Twenty years later the Agnelli family took out a loan of $10m (US) from JP Morgan’s bank in New York.

The People’s Car had a faltering start. Learning from the successes of British utility vehicles such as the Jowett, the air-cooled ‘flat-twin’ engine configuration was adopted by FIAT’s Oreste Lardone, but the most successful prototype caught fire in testing.

Enter, Dante Giacosa, (b. 1905, d. 1996) a graduate of the Polytecnic University in Turin. Giacosa distinguished himself in 1936 by single-handedly designing Agnelli’s People’s Car, the ‘Topolino’, which translates as ‘Little Mouse’ (the name by which Disney’s ‘Mickey Mouse’ was known in Italy). In the one-man-show approach, the Italians again diverged from their American mentors: Ford isolated components of production but the Italians readily accepted the concept of the ‘Artist-Engineer’. In the words of Penny Sparke, one-time Dean of the Faculty of Design at Kensington University, London:

“His work demonstrated a unity of engineering and styling such that the two aspects were indistinguishable from one another”

The Topolino was a huge success, half a million were built and it enjoyed a screen role in the contemporary movie ‘Roman Holiday’; appropriately, as Italian-American links are rarely far away during this period.

Eventually the Topolino had to be replaced and Giacosa, once again provided the solution. In 1955 the ‘600’ was launched. A more modern body-shape was adopted and in order to reduce moving parts the engine was moved to the back of the car (optimizing both production and reliability). Because Italy was really only just becoming an industrialised nation, it happily lacked a legacy of outdated plant (like Britain) that begged to be kept operational for another few decades to provide a perceived ‘return on investment’. But, still, the ‘600’ was somehow inappropriate; it was that little bit too expensive, that bit too much like an inverted bathtub, possibly that bit too ordinary. While the factory went to great pains to offer different options it too was soon replaced.

In 1957 the Nuova Cinquecento (or ‘New 500’) was released. Giacosa succeeded in flaunting his mechanical ingenuity by retaining the 600’s four seats in a far shorter wheelbase, by improving on acceleration while cutting the engine capacity and improving fuel economy. A kerb-weight 500kg also shows judicious use of resources. If reliability had suffered it would have been all too conspicuous in a predominantly rural Italy, but this was not the case. The country’s plentiful aluminium and steel was a great asset as was the Ford influence.

The Vespa (or ‘Wasp’) had appeared in 1946 and the challenge was taken to the car manufacturers. Exceptionally practical, the 500 could squeeze through tiny gaps in ancient Italian cities and park in the most unexpected places.

It could do all of this while keeping a family of four out of the rain or snow. Want the sun? Roll back the fabric sunroof. The 500 gave little comfort to its two-wheeled rival. Italy’s post-war economic miracle had encouraged young couples to start families, driving demand for more products and specifically, modern ones. Italy had little time for the Fascist past and was happy to engage with the future.

Aesthetically, the 500 can be said to have a ‘friendly’ look but beyond the purely emotive it makes use of geometric ratios which help the composition with a sense of cohesion. Looking at it from the side, the car is about twice as long as it is high, while the wheels make up a third of the height of the vehicle and the doors are one third of its length. Imaginary lines extending upwards from the windscreen and C-pillar* would meet above the rear shut-line of the door. The distance from the roof to the lower sill is marked at its half-way point by the door handles. From the front, the car is very nearly square while the windscreen takes up a quarter of the vehicle’s height. The shape is very clean and visually divided into three horizontal zones – odd numbers are usually a better bet than even ones. While parts of such analyses can sound a little tenuous, it goes at least part of the way to explaining why this design ‘looks right’. It’s unlikely that Giacosa came up with the final shape by accident.

Italy needed transport in the 1950’s and it also needed employers. The Nuova Cinquecento and FIAT were able to oblige. But aside from the physical and financial requirements, there was, perhaps, also the human need to declare their independence from American occupation and influence. The Italians had learnt from the U.S. but then, hadn’t the rest of the world learnt from Italy at one time or another? National pride is no small thing and if any country could reassert itself with the help of its design identity, it would be one with a long history in that field such as Italy. The 500, in popular culture, is synonymous with a sense of fun, style and possibly the most likeable face of industrialisation – it is almost synonymous with Italy itself.

* the C-pillar supports the roof either side of the rear window

Bibliography

Print
Baldwin, N. 1987. ‘Old Delivery Vans’. Shire Publications. Buckinghamshire.

Bosconi, G. 2006. ‘Il Modo Italiano: Italian Design and Avant-Garde in the 20th Century’. Thames and Hudson. London.

Pile, J. 1990. ‘Dictionary of 20th Century Design’. Roundtable Press. New York.

Sparke, P. 1988. ‘Italian Design: 1870 to the Present’. Thames and Hudson. London.

Sparke, P. 2002. ‘A Century of car Design’. Octopus Publishing Group. London.


WWW
Dolce Vita Design. 2006. Retrieved September 8 2006, from http://www.dolcevita.com/design/fiat100/fiat.htm

FIAT Nuova 500 Tipo 110F. 2004. Retrieved September 10 2006, from http://ricscan.altervista.org/modelli3D/Fiat500/Fiat500.htm

Making the Modern World: Dante Giacosa. 2004. retrieved September 3 2006, from http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/people/BG.0046/