The odds are quite good that both you and I have never laid eyes on this car before, even in a two-dimensional representation. And the name: “Giardinetta” means station wagon, and we all know what “sleeping” means, especially in a car; right? The question is: just how many millions of lira did someone have to pay to buy this custom coachwork Fiat 1100/1200, all just to be able to “sleep” in it.
There’s more than a hint of Nash in its grille, and the windshield has a Rambler vibe to it. Of course both Nashes and Ramblers were famous for their fold down seats that could be used to “sleep” in them so effectively. Maybe Viotti was trying to capture more than one dimension of those American “sleepers”.
It’s hard to imagine Sophia Loren even fitting in this. 🙂
If I had seen this drive passed I would have thought ” What a 2/3 scale Rambler”. Most have been the most “American”Fait.
Exactly my thought!
I’ll third that. Somehow, “Italian Rambler” doesn’t spring to mind when I’m trying to think of “market niches waiting to be exploited”.
Ha, I saw Rambler too.
I think Fiat missed the branding opportunity of a lifetime.
Rambler in Italian
vagabonda(feminine)
vagabondo(masculine)
Waay cool! Would like to see the “colors”.
I’ve always had an aversion to very wide whitewalls. Especially, on small cars. It lends a circus ‘clown car’ appearance. As some small cars of the 50s, tried to mimic big cars in their design. When wide whitewalls just looked gimmicky. Tires styled to be more discreet, and reflective of the size and status of the car. Less is more here.
Not really risqué. Just a bit more upscale and comfortable than the norm.
Many discrete areas in Naples–while I was there in the mid sixties–were patronized by newly mobile young lovers in their tiny cars, looking to escape crowded apartments and controlling parents.
The vast majority of these were Fiat 500s which we promptly renamed Mexican jumping beans.
What really hit me in the face is that awkward jagged front door cut line (vertical-horizontal-vertical), emphasized by having a contrasting colour panel placed just a few centimetres below it. Okay, the Sleeping is no Mona Lisa, but that visual wart just wasn’t needed. For all those lira I would expect better, Signor Viotti.
Agree, that line looks like it might have been inked in?
My first thought was: IKA must have Torino-ized the ’58 American as well as the ’64 American!
Very nice. A sporty wagon like the Volvo P1800.
It also closely resembles the proposed Metropolitan wagon, except of course for the missing Reveals.
“we all know what “sleeping” means, especially in a car; right?” Usually it means the owner is too impoverished to afford a home to sleep in, or for some reason the driver was too tired (or inebriated) to drive home. Not much risque about that. Apparently the “sleeping” models this coachbuilder made from Fiats simply denoted they had reclining seats, which weren’t yet commonplace. Anyway, in my experience a wagon or hatchback with a back seat that folds flat, creating a flat carpeted floor from the front seatbacks to the back of the car is the best way to sleep, in any sense of that word, in a car. But I grew up after the era of flat full-width bench seats without headrests which could have made for a nice bed when slid forward and then fully reclined, flush with both the front and rear seat cushions.
As I commented on Alden Jewell’s Flickr, this is the same concept as a Chevy Nomad, more stylish but less practical than the factory 4-door Fiat 1100 wagon. I wonder what the price difference was too, now that you mention it.
Interestingly, the factory 1100 body has no such thing as that awkward jog in the fender/door shutline.
My first thought was it was a customised Ford Anglia wagon:
A Nash and a Rambler vibe? First thing I noticed when I looked at it
I like this ! .
I wonder if more than one were made .
Maybe it’s still sitting forgotten some where in Italy….
I know where -one- of the two Nash Metropolitan station wagons is, the late owner bought it from the Nash Engineer who saved it when Nash wanted to junk it, he used it daily for years until the tin worm got it, Jimmy bought and fully restored it, it’s glorious .
In the 1970’s an old friend of mine bought a mid 1960’s Fiat wagon for peanuts, it was an O.K. car to hauls his little family ‘rod in and rarely broke down believe it or not .
-Nate