06 Jul 01
It didn't take long for sports variants of Fiat's bread-and-butter 850 saloon to appear. In 1965, Bertone announced a pretty two-seater Spider version, while Fiat's own styling department produced a neat, fastback, four-seater coupe. In fact, the rear seats were near useless and the luggage space in the nose modest, but this didn't stop people buying the little 850 Coupe and Spider in large numbers. Top speed - they had little more power than the stock saloon - was 90 mph and despite the overhung rear position of the willing little water-cooled pushrod engine, the handling was excellent, with light, positive steering, lots of grip and responsive brakes (discs at the front). Fuel economy of 40 mpg was another inducement.
The Geneva Show of 1968 saw the introduction of a revised coupe with a bigger 903 cc engine that nudged top speed into the middle 90s. There were minor styling revisions too, and the car carried on in this form until 1971, by which time 380,000 850 Coupes had been produced. The Spider continued in production until 1974 because of its popularity in the United States. These were once a common sight in Britain, but rust decimated their numbers in the '70s and only a handful survive.
