Next project - 38 fiat topolino

Its not just different, its different in a certain way. I have a daily driver. The Fiat must have a huge engine (I wish I had a Hemi) open pipes, something substantial sticking thru the hood and a stance and look of a nasty machine, almost a cartoon.

BTW, I have a full set of fenders in great shape if you're interested. You almost cant find them and I will sell them cheap!

 

Found a few more shots in another file...these are mostly early 60's

 

Great pic,s Rich.

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=290613&d=1174610297

Is this car in PHOENIX? BostonMike and myself have now BOTH seen this or an extremely close duplicate in town. I saw it coming toward me in the opposite direction and I thought it was one of those stupid-SMART cars or maybe a trike, haha, I was wrong, dang, it was pretty neat.

 

Your daily dose of Italian excitement........
The car on the salt is in Australia
The woody is custom modified on a coupe shell
The fuel altered belonged to one of the crew on the UPS flopper
The last 2 are the body we did for the re-creation of Flamin Frank Pedregon comp coupe
built by the late Pat Foster

 

You want a second helping of Italian cool....here you go

 

And now some fiberglass for desert...............yummy

 

I have seen them too. I saw some stuff on ebay and I am chasing a source now. I think they come from Europe. I will post the source when i find it.

Rod N Race used to carry them but no longer. They were getting them from somewhere.
Can anyone add to this....... Rich? After all, Rich is Mr Topolino in my book.

 

Fiats NEVER,NEVER were gassers! They had to be altereds because they only have a wheelbase stock of 78 3/4 inches.To run classes at the drags they had to "alter" their wheel base to 92+ inches.I have had an old C/A Fiat for many years now and am in the process of making a street / hot rod out of him.Will post photos in a few days.I have hundreds of pictures of Fiat Topolinos,stock,drag,hot rods.I have a list of parts venders also.Anyone needing help with one of these can email me at wdobos@hotmail.com

Wayne Dobos

 

Getting back to steel Topolino,s, Fiat or Simca. Who was buying these little cars in America and Canada in the late 1930,s ? Was there a market for such a small car then ?

 

Like my good buddy Wayne Dobos, I've been collecting Fiat paper & automobilia for several years and have come up with only a couple pieces of sales literature, all from dealerships in New York City. Even in the 50's, small cars would have had buyers in crowded cities.
Fiat, by the early 30's had a very well developed distribution, manufacturing and licensing system throughout the world. Along with the Simca in France, Topolinos were made by NSU in Germany, Fiat Polski in Poland, in South America, Australia imported complete chassis and produced bodies there. A small quantity of tiny sedans were produced in England.
The other way these cars could have come here is with returning GI's. Not the war time combat troops, but the 10's of thousands that served all over Europe from 1945 through the 1960's. It was not uncommon for the military to bring everything a GI owned back to the states, including vehicles. That Fiats seem to have been in every part of the country, I believe lots of them came home with the troops.

 

Here's my 406sbc, Rod 'n Race bodied street Fiat. With occasional trips down the strip.

 

Here is an update, just in case you all think I have lost interest.
I have done a bunch of stuff, but nothing is particularly earth shaking.

I found the early Ford 12" backing plates and rebuilt them with self energizing brakes for the Buick drums. The drums are re-drilled for my front wheels.
The rear 11" brakes for the 9" are also rebuilt and ready to go.
Also scored a 31 spline trac-loc and some 31 spline axles.

I have a 4" dropped axle and wishbones with spindles also ready to go.

Scored some disks to hide the ugly rear wheels.

The seats are old but in great shape. The only problem is they just fit in the car and the tailshaft of the tranny and the drive shaft have to run through them so I an in the process of carving a tunnel through them. My neighbor is an upholstry guy good thing too, I suck at that.

I had a ratchet shifter hanging around but it was so big and I didnt want it sitting up on top of the tranny looking stupid so I cut it down and made a bracket and a box (to keep it clean from road grit) and mounted it down and to the side of the tranny. Not a lot of room in this little car.

See? Nothing monumental but steady progress. I'm stoked.

 

Started on the frame. In and out of the car to make adjustments but not welded up yet, just tacked. Something tells me that I will be making more changes before its done. I tapered the front rails next to the motor just for looks. I put a cool Speedway sticker on it so everybody would know its made in China and its shit, I mean, the shit.

Also got this old funky hi-rise intake. I have to use this because I dont have blower and something needs to stick up through the hood to obstruct my view, doesnt it?

I tried my hand at shaping sheet metal for the rockers and it worked out great.

You can also see my plan to put the radiator in the back. That should be fun.

 

I have decided to use a tunable four link rear suspension. I made the parts and pieces but haven't welded them yet because I havn't made the brackets tor the rearend and frame. Thats next. I have recieved quite an education on this subject. There is quite a bit more going on here with instant centers and % of rise or squat, center of gravity,etc , than I had any idea of.

Thats about it for now. Back to work.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

a bit more inspiration for you....(note: would love to get my hands on a body to drape over my HA/GR)

So wrong and yet so right...

 

looking very nice my friend.......need to back up and get one of those "i got most of the peices hanging where they belong pics"............that's what keeps me going, find another chunck of wood and prop up another part and look at it........ya crazy i know...but i have fun doing it!!!!!!!!!!besides, did i mention i'm a poor Hamber?????????

 

I made some progress. So far so good.

Thanks for all your help along the way.
I'm stoked.

 

Maddog,

Chassis looks great! Your 4 link setup looks alot like mine. I noticed the top bar is on quite a angle. I know you did alot of research on the 4 link setup. I was wondering if it is better staight and even with the bottom bar or doesn't it matter as long as the pinion angle is were it should be?
Thanks

 

Thanks Gasser. I have even more respect and admiration for all the guys that have built cars now. Its a ton of work but I'm lovin it.

The pinion angle is the pinion angle. That has to be right no matter where your bars point. You adjust that with the length of the bars. Yes they are related but you set that up seperate.

There are parallel bar setups and tunable bar setups. They both work about the same but the parallel bars are not usually tunable. The parallel setups will allways make your car squat on take off.

The tunable bars work from an "instant center". Google that and you can see how they work. Basically, the bars point to an imaginary point where they intersect. That point is called the instant center. Depending on where the instant center is in your setup, controls how the car will perform when launching. Its all reletive to the Center Of Gravity of your vehicle. Your car will rise up or squat, front and/or rear depending on where you make your "Instant Center"

I kind of want mine to rise a little definatly not squat.

 

I got everything in one place. Working on the front spring and the firewall now. Looks like the stock louvers will close up the hood around the intake nicely.

Fiat Gasser, I got back to the shop and realized that I had the rear of the top link in the top hole. It should have been lower, so you have a good eye. That position would have squated the rear.

 

I also installed the Buick hub to Ford spindle bearing adapters that 29Rat is selling here on the Hamb. They worked great and his instructions were great allong with pictures and the proper Buick bearing and seal numbers. I was a little skeptical, kits never work for me. I was going to make them myself but I took a chance and tried them. Perfect is all I can say. Thanks 29Rat.

 

now that's starting to look like a hot rod!!! i wish you'ld get it done, then ya could drive over and help me get mine finished...looks good Jim

 

Looks good maddog, my 38 is on hold while I'm in the final stage of getting my 23T altered running, and I'm still gathering the parts I need for my 38 (and trying to sell the Heidts open wheel IFS that I originally had under my 38), I'm hopin in that my 38 will get on the chassis jig sometime in April (it should be worth the wait, especially with what I have planned for it).

 

Looking good!! We too are working on our 38. We are in the process of building the 301 sbc. Can't wait for spring!

 

Maddog,
Great to see you making progress. It's looks great. You'll be on the road before you know it.

 

just listed a Rod and Custom magazine in my add with a cool article about a fiat in the classified section.
Here is the link

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=329761

 

This is one mean looking project man.... keep it going!

 

No. No. No.

Pie crust slicks!!!! Please

 

As a new member of the HAMB let me just say Hello to all the rambling members. and now to the point of this addition to this thread... I just bought MadDog's Fiat Topolino
and wanted to let those of you who where following the building process that I will be posting pics of the process as I move along inching the little mouse to full hot rod status.

Have no fear for this project I use to do this for a living..... ok, have a little fear.

I'll post a few pics of some past projects I've done with my bro if anyone is interested.

MadDog informed me that he thought someone on the board had access to lower door panels, both inner lower frame structure pieces and lower out skin pieces. These doors are pretty bad at the bottom and figured I'd follow his lead before making new parts from scratch first. Any info is appreciated.

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