60s Fiat 850 Coupe Sport - Fiat's best classic coupe?!

Video Description

Fiat 850 Coupe Sport The Fiat 850 Coupe came swinging into the circuit in the mid 60s at the Geneva motor show. Initially powered by a 843cc engine giving 47bhp, the cars were dubbed ‘enormous fun in their respective categories’ by Motor Sport magazine. There’s an American advert on youtube elsewhere and it dubs the car ‘ideal in the city, perfect on the highway with speed and style’ and as you’ll see on today’s test, it’s not marketing fluff. It is a great all rounder. The cars were initally devised to replace the 600 and share a lot of the same underpinnings - although the cars ended up selling side by side on Fiat forecourts. In 1968, Fiat revised the cars and with it came the 850 Sport which we’re testing today. The look of the car was gently revised with a quad headlamp finish which gave it a sporty, racy look and a more powerful 903cc engine which on British tests was getting 90-91mph. The brochure reckons you can do 0-50 in just over 12 seconds, which still holds true now. The car was boasted to have refined engineering for the ’68 revision and part of this included the alternator as standard, the aluminum oil sump with large cooling area and bigger oil pump. The centrifugal oil filter, wider radial tyres and discs on front wheels and the longer-wear exhaust valves and seats. The car was also said to be faster and safer due to the new quad lamps giving better vision for night driving, reverse lamp for additional safety and bigger rear side windows which admittedly does help with the visibility. Cost wise in the UK, the car was coming in at just over £900 - which made it over £200 more than a MK2 Cooper and if you’re a Rootes fanatic, it was £100 dearer than the Sunbeam Stiletto. When production came to a close in 1971 and the car was replaced with the 127 Coupe, over 380,000 Coupes and Spiders had been sold. Despite these healthy numbers, you’ll be hard pushed to see a gaggle of them at a British car show and that’s a dreadful pity.