shot and posted by J.C.
I need to explain why I selected this car from the Cohort as well as the title. I started listening to Walter Mosley’s latest book, “Every Man A King”, and after an hour so, I stopped. It just wasn’t working for me, for a number of reasons, which is odd, as I loved all of his Easy Rawlins books. This one has a new protagonist, Jo King Oliver, a Black private detective, set in today’s New York City.
And what does Mosley have King drive? An Autobianchi Bianchina. It’s a Fiat 500 with a cute convertible or coupe body, and with 15, 17.5 or 21 hp, depending on the version. Yes cute, and yes, Mosley has demonstarted his knowledge of cars, but come on; driving a Bianchina in New York City, as his daily driver? Today? That’s just a bridge too far for me.
Here’s the coupe. Strictly speaking, there was also a sedan and wagon, but I doubt that’s what was on Mosley’s mind.
It wasn’t just the Bianchina either; pretty much all the characters and elements of the book weren’t working for me. Oh, and Jo’s brother drives a 1950s Willys Jeep; again, as his daily driver. The problem is that it feels like Mosley, who is a great story teller, is trying too hard to impress us too hard with his superior intelligence, to the point it gets in the way. Stephanie loved it, and thinks I’m being way to objective or whatever. It’s true that I generally prefer non-fiction, and when it’s technically fiction, the kind that’s based heavily on actual lived experience, like all the Jack Kerouac books I’ve just finished reading.
Speaking of Kerouac, one of the last of his books I listened to (when I’m driving back and forth to Port Orford) was Big Sur; the events in it take place in 1955. Kerouac goes to stay at Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s cabin in Big Sur, to dry out, among other things. And what do Ferlinghetti, Neal Cassidy, and another couple all drive when they come out to visit him? All of them have Willys station wagons; which apparently was the cool car to to have in the Bay Area at the time. All had their rear seats out, and a mattress or such back there, where passengers sat informally. These weren’t 4WD versions, most likely, but they suited the beat lifestyle, on a number of levels.
Given the huge cultural impact these beat pioneers had on American (and global) culture, it’s not be a bridge too far to suggest that among other things, they helped usher in the whole SUV fad.
In current times I can’t see an Autobianchi in N.Y.C. but I bet it would help in parking…
This is one more car I’d love to try out, I’d skip the gorilla suit .
-Nate
I tried to read Big Sur a few months ago, on your recommendation as I recall, but struggled and returned it to the library unfinished. Actually, barely started, to be honest. I remember a lot of these Jeeps around when I was a kid; I vaguely remember an older very Bohemian woman friend of my Mom’s who drove one. Not coincidentally perhaps, she had some ties to Big Sur. The community, not the book.
I shouldn’t really recommend books; it’s such an individual thing. I’m a bit surprised at myself for stopping “Every Man a King”, but it just wasn’t sucking me in.
I was on a big Kerouac binge; listened to most of them. But…I think his books probably really benefit from good readers. I never actually “read” any of them; all were on Audible.
Stephanie just told me she remembers riding in the back of a family friend’s Willys wagon as a very young child in Marin, also without the back seat, bouncing around back there as they drove on some rough country road.
Unless I’m crazy (it’s possible!) that simply HAS to be the car that inspired the Nissan Figaro.
I don’t want to call you crazy; maybe just forgetful, as we’ve pointed out the true inspiration for the Figaro more than once here. It’s the 1950s AWZ P70, the forerunner to the more well-known East German Trabant.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-asian/curbside-classic-1991-nissan-figaro-more-anime-than-animal/
But the Bianchina probably deserves credit for an assist.
It’s okay, Paul. I’ve been called worse 🙂
Rumour has it that the Gutbrod Superior (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutbrod_Superior) served as a template for the Figaro, but the Bianchina also fits into these 50s templates.
Yes, that one too. An amalgamation, undoubtedly.
c’est certain
My thought when I saw that green/white one.
I recently read Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby. Noir crime fiction I suppose, perhaps similar to Mosley, with an automotive theme. Recommended by a non-car friend who thought I’d love the automotive detail. I enjoyed the book, but the car stuff was cringe-worthy; they really needed an automotive editor to get the details – or even the general car themes – remotely accurate and credible. Not to be a spoiler for anyone who plans to read it: as an example, a junkyard Buick Grand National destined for the crusher is used as a getaway car.
Yeah, I’ll stop reading when an author tries too hard to get technical, and misses. A good writer needs to know what he doesn’t know. It’s better to stay generic when you don’t know the specifics.
Kerouac definitely knew cars. I still remember his description of Dean taking a Hudson up to 110 and throwing a rod while crossing a bridge. The overall theme, which Kerouac didn’t quite say explicitly, was that Dean and the Beats were extreme consumers, not creators. They enthusiastically consumed music and cars and drugs, but didn’t make anything.
They created a cultural revolution whose influence is still resonating. And some of them wrote books and such.
FWIW, Kerouac just wanted to be a writer that was accepted by the literary world. Becoming famous ruined his life, drove him into terminal alcoholism, which killed him.
An Autobianchi showed up in an ep of “I Spy”. I wonder how Culp and Cosby had enough room to work the pedals, as the front wheel wells must have crowded their foot room.
As the ep went on, the car got more crowded.
I tried and failed to read Every Man a King too. Too many characters to keep track of. But I devoured Mosely’s “Easy” Rawlins mysteries, like Devil in a Blue Dress (1990.) Didn’t that one feature some low production/high dollar 1930s French car?
I saw one of these on the street about 10 years back in Paris
Audrey Hepburn drove one in “How to Steal a Million”
https://citizenscreen.tumblr.com/post/632367835927150592/audrey-hepburn-and-a-fiat-autobianchi-bianchina
Lawrence Ferlinghetti was in my Italian class in San Francisco back in the 90s. Tough guy to sit behind when the homework was to write a poem, but such a nice man.
I think the wagon version from Autobianchi works well
Another automotive website recently had a point-counterpoint about daily driving a classic car in Los Angeles – in this case the owner having a collection consisting of an automatic-swapped (by a previous owner) Nash Metropolitan, an early Mustang and a late ’70s Jeep Cherokee and finding none of them really up to the task while the counterpoint was provided by a writer who had done exactly that in a ’72 VW Beetle throughout the ’00s and into the early ’10s.
Beetles and their kin still work as daily drivers – pretty tough to begin with and dependable if you keep them maintained. Much more so than my brand new AMG E-Class which was so bad I returned it after 2 weeks, glad to still have the VW.
If something does go wrong with an air cooled VeeDub all parts are quickly available (except most body parts for Ghias). I’ve done this for the last few years with my ’71 Ghia and it works, but you have to be of the mindset to enjoy it.
My Maserati driving wife would never accept the lack of comfort and safety (agree on that we have a child) in my “old banger” as she calls it and thinks (knows) I’m mad, but to each their own.
I have a friend who daily drives a 1930 Model A, but that is local with no freeways.
I bet that was the young man I gave my 1959 Met FHC to last year, if he’d bothered to actually drive the thing he’d know it was faster than most L.A. traffic .
The drum brakes were fine too as long as kept adjusted .
That raggedy old thing was well known for blistering past other traffic all over Los Angeles and across the Desert too .
Sadly the guy I gave it to turned out to be a typical rich jerk .
Sad as he enjoyed saving old vehicles, his website details many good jobs .
-Nate
Mr Mosley must like old cars. In his Leonid McGill series from a decade ago, the protagonist had a mid ’50s Pontiac. Although I seem to recall that it was specifically treated as a collector car and not necessarily a daily driver.