Saturday, February 21, 2026

1971 Fiat 124 Sport Spider


The Fiat Spider is a hard car to date at a glance. Barring detail changes like side marker lights and bumpers it was sold in the US with its appearance largely unchanged from 1968 through 1985.

How do I know this is a '71? Via the clever detective technique of yelling "Nice car! What year is it?"

These older ones were imported with a 1.6L DOHC and a five-speed manual gearbox which was still pretty exotic stuff in the late Sixties. With twin carbs it put out a bit over a hundred horsepower and could manage a zero-to-sixty time a few ticks under ten seconds, before emissions and the weight of post-'73 bumpers took their toll.

This one was photographed in May of 2017 using a Leica D-LUX 3.

No comments:

Post a Comment

1971 Chevrolet El Camino

The third generation of Chevrolet's El Camino ute debuted for 1968 and would be replaced by the fourth gen for 1973, so that makes this ...