OT: Fiat versus Porsche

Wonderful, looks like a nice and wet day, now hit the brakes at high speed, see what happens - fiat vs porsche...

Cheers, WS

Very oblique reference: a Fiat is an all-time best seller:

The bestsellers that never say die By Giles Chapman of The Sunday Times

There have been many lists of motoring bestsellers but, as far as we can tell, none that celebrates only those cars that have remained virtually unaltered from the day they first went on sale. That's why there is no Toyota Corolla on our list . Although 29m cars bearing the name have been sold since 1966, it has been redesigned nine times and no single version has reached the crucial 5m level to qualify for the league table. It's the same for the Toyota Camry and the Ford Mustang, each with some 10m sales but almost as many makeovers.

On the other hand, the Fiat Uno in fourth place soldiers on in Brazil in much the same shape as it was 22 years and 8.5m models ago. Then there is the Fiat 124 - or more precisely the Russian-built Lada version of it. Dismissed years ago in the West as an embarrassing anachronism, the car is still being built in Russia (since 1970) in essentially the same form as when launched in Italy in 1966.

That the venerable Model T has been ousted from second place by a Lada might be hard to take but there is no disgrace in being beaten by a car we suspect will one day take over the top spot. For now that honour remains with the VW Beetle, which has worn the crown since February 17,

1972, when it overtook the Model T.

Like the Beetle the Mini (Britain's only entry) has recently been revived and updated but BMW's version is not included in sales figures since its Mini is the same in name only.

Today, in its frantic scramble for quick sales, the car industry would rarely allow a model to stay in unaltered production for 10 years, much less the 31 years of the VW Golf MK1 or the 64 years of the Beetle.

In fact unlike other bestselling lists - and with one eye on the unstoppable Lada - this one looks set to remain largely unchanged for good.

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Hah, it stopped being a fiat when they put, what sounds like, a small block Checvy drivetrain in it.

Correct. I enjoyed this video.

ah yes, the 126, I had a lot of fun doing some rally driving in the woods with that :-)

cp

Actually, the fiat might have an advantage in that respect as the rear end is holding all the weight on the Porsche. The 911 is famous for end swapping on heavy breaking in low traction conditions.

That said, if you are an expert driver the 911 has excellent brakes...

Marty

holding all the weight on the Porsche.

The Fiat 126 "engine" is also in the rear, I tell you, that thing is a rip in the woods!

cp

Huh, I stand corrected... I have some memories of these cars, but they rusted into the ground 20+ years ago...

Marty

into the ground 20+ years ago...

The Fiat 126 was a mini car available only in poland, as for rusting into the ground, the one made in the late 90's were quite rust prone but the 80's ones are still puttered around by teenagers

cp

Fiat 126 was available all across Europe.

yes it's true

Perhaps the Italian one, the one in the video is a polak one.

cp

"cp" haute in die Tasten:

No. Fiat has been making cars in Poland for decades. I cannot remember if all 126 were built in Poland, but at least the last five or six years of their production they came exclusively from there. The Cinquecento and the current Seicento are of polish production, too. Not sure about the current Panda, but IIRC it is also from Poland.

So Fiat was selling cars to Western Europe, which were made in a country of the Warshaw Pact long before 1989. Other european car makers like VW and Citroen used to trade cars for car parts made in the GDR. So virtually all VW Golf II had headlamps made in the GDR, and AFAIK the camshafts for the Citroen GSA were also of east german production. In the late 80's VW and east german Car Maker Wartburg signed a contract which contained the delivery of a complete engine production site of the 1.6 litre VW Golf engine and the 1.0 litre VW Polo engine. This site was to be payed with engines made there.

Frank

I'm just saying that the clunker in the video is the polish one

cp