Tag Archives: Fiat

Taking the Mickey

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The famed Fiat 500 was not the brand’s first city car. For that you have to go way back to 1936 and the Topolino, or ‘little mouse’ (which was also the Italian name for Mickey Mouse), a tiny 569cc, 13hp two-seater sold up until the 500’s introduction in 1955.

Designed for two, but often seen with four or five very uncomfortable people squeezed inside, the Topolino was one of the smallest cars in the world at the time, and a hugely successful one, with over half-a-million produced.

Important to Italy’s mobility as the Topolino was however, we wouldn’t think of it as the obvious choice for a ‘Gasser’ hot rod. Fortunately Tim Inman‘s mind works differently to ours, because the resultant creation is unhinged brilliance, and there’s more of Tim’s Topolino Gasser to see on Flickr. Click the link above to make the jump.

Tinder Lies

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This is a Dino 246, the late-’60s to mid-’70s Ferrari-that-wasn’t-a-Ferrari.

The Dino 206 and 246 compared favourably with the Porsche 911 and other sports cars of the time, but the 2.0 and 2.4 litre V6 Fiat engines fitted were considered too entry-level for the main Ferrari brand, despite Ferrari upping the horsepower figure by 20bhp.

By ‘upping the horsepower figure’ we do mean that literally; Ferrari’s number may have been 20bhp higher than Fiat’s, but the engine was identical. It’s the ’60s motoring equivalent of adding a few inches to your height on Tinder…

Despite the outright lies we do rather like the Dino, and time has been kind to it, with a quick search revealing the Dinos for sale today are all listed as ‘Ferraris’. And they probably have an extra 20bhp in the performance figures too.

This lovely Speed Champions recreation of the not-quite-a-Ferrari comes from Flickr’s Thomas Gion, who has captured the Dino 246 GT beautifully. There’s more to see at Thomas’ ‘1969 “Ferrari” Dino 246 GT’ album‘ on Flickr – take a look via the link above whilst this TLCB Writer makes a minor amendment his Tinder profile.

Floating Fiat

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Fiat, like many of motoring’s earliest names, began as much as an aircraft manufacturer as an automotive one. By 1969 though, the aircraft division had been separated from Fiat’s vehicle group, which – as anyone who has owned a 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, or even 2000s Fiat will testify – was probably a very good thing indeed. Fiat electrics at 30,000ft don’t bear thinking about…

Bravely returning Fiat to the clouds however is Brick Spirou, who has modified the official LEGO 10271 Fiat 500 set into something rather more airborne. Four funky repulser engines equip Brick’s Fiat for the skies, whilst the giant engine-lid-mounted rear wing is presumably mounted upside-down for lift rather than downforce.

There’s more of Brick Spirou’s 10271 Fiat 500 hovercar to see on Flickr via the link above, plus you can click here for a bonus LEGO set that has also received the hovercar treatment.

Also Available in Blue

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The charming 10271 Creator Expert Fiat 500 set became a firm favourite when it joined LEGO’s ever growing line-up of officially licensed vehicles last year. Although we still don’t know why it comes with an easel.

Whilst the primrose yellow hue of the original set suites the Fiat 500 perfectly, the humble Italian city car was also available in a range of other pastel colours in the 1960s, and LEGO have decided to release a new version of the 10271 set in this lovely light blue.

Becoming 77942, the new Fiat 500 set is identical to the yellow version, only in, er… blue (with even the pointless easel updated accordingly).

On sale in the UK now, 77942 will hopefully roll out elsewhere (otherwise expect some ludicrous pricing on eBay), and could perhaps signal a wider multi-colour strategy from LEGO for successful sets?

Our picks would be the 10265 Ford Mustang updated in Bullitt green, or maybe even a Herbie-d 10252 Volkswagen Beetle!

Build-a-Fiat

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LEGO’s 10271 Creator Fiat 500 set is a fine addition to their officially licensed line up. Even if we don’t understand why it comes with an easel.

However being a Creator set, 10271 isn’t particularly technical. Cue TLCB Master MOCer Nico71, who has constructed a similarly-sized sixties Fiat 500 in Technic form with a whole heap more functionality. Although no easel.

Nico’s Fiat looks the part, with a combination of axles, lift arms and flex tubes recreating the 500’s famous shape, under which is a working rear-mounted two cylinder engine driven by the rear wheels, functioning steering, front and rear suspension, plus opening doors, front trunk and engine cover.

It’s a lovely build (that would make an excellent set too), and one that you can recreate for yourself at home as Nico has made building instructions available.

There’s more to see on Eurobricks, and at Nico’s excellent website, plus you can read his interview in the Master MOCers series here at The Lego Car Blog via the link in the next above.

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Just Like a 911. Sort of.

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The Porsche 911 is not the only rear-engined rear-wheel-drive European car. In fact there were loads, including Volkswagens, Tatras, Skodas, the Smart ForTwo, and – of course – Fiats.

Following the phenomenally successful 500, Fiat followed up with another rear-engined, rear-driven design, the near five-million selling 126.

Much of the 126’s technology was based on the 1950’s 500, which – considering it was produced in Polski-Fiat 126p form until the year 2000 – is both an astonishing achievement and rather frightening.

It’s the Polski-Fiat version we’re featuring here today, a car that mobilised Poland, although only if you were prepared to wait years or had communistical connections. Recreated in a fetching ‘hearing-aid beige’ / ‘baby-sick yellow’, Legostalgie‘s Model Team replica of the 126p captures the real car wonderfully, with a near perfect exterior, detailed interior, plus opening doors, front trunk and engine cover, with a realistic two-cylinder engine underneath.

Legostalgie has presented his model beautifully, and there are more top-notch images available to view at his ‘Polski Fiat 126p’ album on Flickr – click on the link above for all the drawbacks of a 1970’s Porsche 911, but none of the thrills…

It’s as Easy as AC B

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We love receiving comments here at TLCB. It means people actually read this stuff. Well, when we say we love receiving them, it does depend a little upon what we receive.

Automated spam for various exciting sounding drugs, offers of ‘help’ to ‘grow our audience’ and ‘give me instruktions’ comments arrive in their hundreds, but in-between all of that nonsense we do get some gems. Such as this one.

Suggested by a reader this is Firas Abu-Jaber’s AC Cobra, built solely from the parts found in the official 10271 Fiat 500 set. So excellent does it look that we wouldn’t have guessed that it has been constructed from the pieces of a single LEGO set, with opening doors, hood and trunk, a detailed interior, and even a realistic engine bay.

There’s loads more to see of Firas’s fantastic 10271 AC Cobra B-Model at his Flickr album by clicking these words, and if you’d like to suggest a creation or leave feedback about anything else (preferably not exciting sounding drugs or offers to ‘help’ to ‘grow our audience’ though), you can get in touch via the Contact page here.

Beast of Turin (Probably)

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The inline four-cylinder petrol engine is the most commonly fitted engine to cars the world over. The optimum balance between smoothness, power, efficiency, and er… cheapness, the inline-4 needs only one cylinder head, there are always two cylinders going down as two go up, and when mounted transversely it takes up little space.

Despite all those worthy attributes however, these days the inline 4-cylinder can be seen as a bit dull, despite the efforts of the world’s best engineers to liven it up. Back in the earliest days of motoring though, it was anything but.

Bentley’s amazing ‘Blower‘ racing cars used 4-cylinders, and so too did Fiat, who – in 1911 – fitted a four-cylinder engine to their S76 World Record Car of twenty-eight litres capacity. The result was quite fiery, and allowed the ‘Beast of Turin’ to hit an unofficial top speed of over 130mph.

It’s this car that Joe Maruschak‘s ‘Vintage Race Car’ most closely resembles, itself being fitted with a working 4-cylinder engine utilising LEGO’s suitably vintage square pistons and featuring pushrod-operated valves.

A hidden Power Functions motor brings Joe’s creation to life and there’s more to see of his mighty 4-cylinder racing car on Flickr via the link above.

My Other Other Car’s a Fiat…

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The Fiat 500 has been a runaway success across Europe. Over two million have been sold to date, despite the design remaining virtually unchanged in fourteen years of production.

Fiat, unused to building a car that people actually like, subsequently decided that literally everything they make should be a 500[something]. This has unfortunately led to hideous monstrosities like this, which have been about as successful as storming the U.S. Capitol building in the hope of overturning a legitimate election.

However unlike Fiat, LEGO’s ace 10271 Creator Fiat 500 set is proving not only a hit, but also one that can be used to create a range of other vehicles that don’t just look like a regular 500 has died at sea and washed up on a beach months later.

Cases in point are these two brilliant B-Models, each built only from the parts found within the 10271 Fiat 500 set, and each managing to successfully create something new and excellent from the recycled parts.

First up (above) is monstermatou‘s marvellous 1920s Citroen 5HP Trefle, which captures the real car so well you’d be hard pushed to know it’s an alternate (which explains why monstermatou very nearly won TLCB Lock-Down B-Model Competition with one of his past builds). Building instructions are available and there’s more to see on Flickr via the link above.

Today’s second 10271 alternate comes from a past official LEGO set designer no less, the incredibly talented Nathanael Kuipers, who has turned the little classic Fiat into a 1950s pick-up truck.

Cleverly using the Fiat’s interior pieces to make up for the shortfall in available bodywork bricks, Nathanael’s B-Model includes opening doors, hood and tailgate, and building instructions are available too.

Click the link above to check out more of Nathanael’s B-Model at his photostream, and if you own a 10271 Creator Fiat 500 set, perhaps see what you can create from it! You’ll easily do a better job than Fiat have managed with the real thing…

My Other Car’s a Fiat

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LEGO’s brilliant 10265 Ford Mustang set has been turned into all sorts of B-Models by the enterprising online community. So too has the equally marvellous 10271 Fiat 500 set, but this is the first time one set has been used to create the vehicle from the other!

This excellent 1960s Ford Mustang fastback comes from Flickr’s Gerald Cacas, and it’s been built only from the parts found within the 10271 Fiat 500 set. Like the official LEGO version Gerald’s model includes opening doors, trunk and hood, under which there’s the option of fitting a gloriously oversized hood-protruding engine. Combine that with it being both yellow and adorned with racing stripes and you have a car almost made for TLCB Elves.

There’s more of the creation to see of Gerald’s Ford Mustang 10271 Alternate Build album, where you can also enquire about building instructions should you wish to convert your own 10271 Fiat into Ford’s iconic ’60s pony car.

Now if only someone could build a Fiat 500 from the 10265 Ford Mustang set to complete the circularity…

My Other Car’s a Fiat

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Fiat’s original 500 was small, very cheap, and designed to mobilise the the masses, with over 3.5 million built during a production run that lasted two decades. The beauty of LEGO of course, is that you can turn anything into anything, as published author Peter Blackert (aka Lego911) has proven with his beautiful 1935 Auburn 851 ‘Boat-Tail’ Speedster.

Produced for the super wealthy for just one year and in tiny numbers, the Auburn 851 Speedster is about as far removed from the diminutive Italian peoples’ car as it’s possible to get. With a 4.5 litre straight-eight (and an optional supercharger), the Auburn Speedster’s engine was nine times larger than the Fiat 500’s with four times as many cylinders, and provided it with a top speed double that of the Fiat.

However Peter’s wonderful replica of the Auburn 851 Speedster has more in common with the little 500 than it may appear, as it uses only the recycled parts from the official 10271 Creator Fiat 500 set in its construction, even repurposing the Fiat’s canvas sunroof to form the Auburn’s convertible top.

It’s a superbly diverse alternate and there’s lots more to see of Peter’s brilliant Auburn Boat-Tail B-Model at his photostream. Click the link above to turn your Fiat into something altogether more dashing!

Scorpion King

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Notable only for being Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s first lead role, the 2002 fantasy adventure ‘The Scorpion King’ is an appalling turd of a movie. A spin off from ‘The Mummy’ franchise, it took the shonkily CGI-ed character from the second Mummy instalment (itself only worth watching for Rachel Weisz) and dragged it out over ninety stupefying minutes.

However some scorpion spin-offs are worth a look, and the car in this post is one of them.

The Autobianchi A112 was created through collaboration by Fiat, tyre-maker Pirelli, and bicycle manufacturer Bianchi, launching in 1969 and being – as most Italian cars of the time were – rather excellent.

Over a million Autobianchi A112s were produced before the brand was eventually merged into Lancia, with the design also forming the basis of the rather good Fiat 127, the less good Seat 127, the pretty bad Polski-Fiat 127, and the miserable Yugo 45.

Of course being effectively a Fiat, Italian tuners Abarth got their hands on the A112 too, and uprated the tiny 900cc engine to 1,050cc, taking power from around 45bhp to a mighty 70 in the process.

Today’s post is an A112 in Abarth flavour, as built by previous bloggee Zeta Racing in full ‘Technic Supercar’ specification. Capturing the look of the real car brilliantly, Zeta has engineered his Lego replica with a working engine, gearbox, steering, and suspension, along with opening doors, hood, and hatchback. Zeta’s model also includes fully remotely controlled Power Functions drivetrain, with motors powering both the front-wheel-drive and steering, the gearbox, and equipping the car with working brakes.

It’s a fantastic build, presented beautifully, and enhanced with few choice decals (including the famous Abarth scorpion), and there’s much more of Zeta’s Autobianchi A112 Abarth to see at his photostream. Click the link above to check out one Scorpion King worth viewing.

My Other Car’s a Fiat

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Fiat, since their takeover of Chrysler in 2014, are the owners of Dodge, Ram, and Jeep. Which means Jeeps are now Fiats and Maseratis are now Jeeps.

It’s fitting then, that this creation by LEGO set designer Nathanael Kuipers (aka NKubate), is – despite its Jeepy appearance – actually a Fiat underneath, being built solely from the parts found within the official Creator 10271 Fiat 500 set.

However if it looks familiar that’s because it actually has more in common with the Jeep-inspired Model Team 5510 Off-Road 4×4 set from the late ’80s, being a modern interpretation of this vintage set, but built from another set. Which makes our head hurt.

You can check it out at Nathanel’s photostream by clicking here, where you can also find a link to building instructions should you want to turn your own Fiat 500 set into a classic Jeep.

Numero Uno Turbo

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It’s the 1980s and literally everything has got ‘Turbo’ written on it. Aftershave, sunglasses, and – as of 1985 – even Fiat shopping cars. The Fiat Uno Turbo i.e. did actually feature a turbo too, with an IHI unit, complete with intercooler, fitted to its 1.3 litre engine.

Power jumped to 105bhp, which may not sound a lot (and isn’t), but ’80s Italian cars had the structural integrity of a paper bag, and thus were almost comically light. This gave the Uno Turbo a 127mph top speed and a 0-60 time of 7 seconds, which was properly quick for the time. We just don’t want to think about crashing one…

Fortunately Fiat had an answer, creating the Uno Turbo i.e. ‘Antiskid’, which was equipped with a rudimentary form of ABS. It’s this version that Zeta Racing has chosen to recreate – beautifully – in Technic form, adding another stunning ’80s Italian hot hatchback to his catalogue, following the incredible Lancia Delta HF Integrale’s published here yesterday.

Like the Lancias, Zeta’s Uno Turbo replicates the real car with jaw-dropping authenticity, including a full ‘Technic Supercar’ driveline consisting of a transverse 4-cylinder engine, suspension, steering, and gearbox, all motorised via LEGO Power Functions components.

The model also includes a fantastically realistic interior, with folding seats, a tilting sunroof, and some rather ingenious seatbelts that we suspect we’ll see on a lot more Technic creations after this is published. Opening doors, hood and hatchback complete the model, and there’s loads more to see at Zeta Racing’s photostream.

Click the link above to make the jump to Flickr for all the photos, whilst we squash down our hankering to buy one of these tiny tinny Italian deathtraps*…

*It seems that improbably thin Italian steel didn’t survive UK winters very well. Just a dozen Fiat Uno Turbo’s are left on UK roads, and only two ‘Antiskid’ versions. They may have crashed less, but they rusted just us much…

Game of Bricks – Light Kit (10271 Fiat 500) | Review

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It’s review time here at The Lego Car Blog, and on this occasion we thought we’d share the love and offer the product we were supplied to one of our readers. It just so happens that the reader in question owns a considerably more professional Lego site than we do…

So, over to Balasz at the brilliant Racing Brick, as he switches on one of Game of Bricks newest kits, bringing LED lighting to the lovely LEGO 10721 Fiat 500 set;

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TLCB kindly offered me a light kit by Game of Bricks for the Creator Expert 10271 Fiat 500 kit. This happened months ago, but due to some logistical issues on both sides (thanks Coronavirus, Ed.), I only had a chance to try it now.

The 10271 lighting kit comes in a nice black box, but it only has the logo of the manufacturer on it. I’m not sure if you get any additional identification if you order multiple light kits, but mine didn’t give any clues as to which LEGO set it belonged to.

Inside the box I found five numbered plastic bags and a battery box, and as you can see there’s not any extra documentation or anything in the box besides the hardware, which is a good thing if we think about the environment, but it makes the project a bit challenging if we are looking for some building instructions.I tried to go first to the web page of Game of Bricks and the product page of the Fiat 500 light kit, but there’re no instructions there.

As the text says I can ask for pdf instructions, but I was hoping to find them without the need to reach out to the team.As always Google helped me out; apparently Game of Bricks have a page for their instructions and I managed to find the one for the Fiat 500. I already installed some light kits from other manufacturers and the instructions were very similar, I can say that the steps for this set are pretty easy to follow.

The tiny LEDs and the cables are also familiar, if you ever saw a 3rd party light kit then there won’t be any surprises.

Installing the front lights is a pretty straightforward exercise, although I was a bit surprised that only the upper lights got a replacement piece instead of the LEGO pieces, the lower ones had to be squeezed under the transparent round 1×1 piece.Under normal circumstances there’s exactly zero space between the transparent piece and the stud below it, so even with this super thin wire it will be a bit off and you need to push it in place carefully.

The rear section has similar challenges to solve, and we get a light strip for the roof with an adhesive tape to attach to the sunroof. I decided not to attach it, as the cables can be arranged to hold it in place.All cables will meet at the bottom, where you need to attach them to a splitter piece, although the tiny connectors are not the easiest to handle, and you need some extra arrangement if you want to keep your model movable.

The battery box requires 3 AAA batteries and includes a USB connector. If you have a smaller power bank or something similar then it might be a good idea to change it, as the one in the kit barely fits in the model. It is also challenging to turn on and off, as you need to remove it to be able to access the button.

However the end result looks great, and can really spice up a display model. The modular design is a big plus, all my previous light kits were hard wired together so it was not possible to add only certain sections of them to a model. For example, if you don’t want to use the cabin light in the Game of Bricks kit then you can simply detach it whilst leaving the rest of the LEDs in the model.

The only thing I’d like to change if I wanted to display the set permanently with LED lighting installed would be the power source, if only to make the on/off button more accessible!

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Thanks to Balazs from Racing Brick for taking a look over Game of Bricks lighting kit for the 10271 Fiat 500 set. You can find this kit, along with all of the Game of Bricks kits for official LEGO vehicles, at their website, and you can check out Racing Brick too by clicking here!