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You still see these every once in a while on the road here in Italy, mostly on Sundays when people take out their weekend toys

this was a city car, but families would take vacations with it too. two adults, two children, and all the luggage you could cram into it, and then hit the highway with 17 hp. we take much for granted today, but only a few decades ago things were very different.

My high school girlfriend had a 600, about a '67 model +/-. much the same as the 500 just marginally larger. What a fun little car! I had a Desoto Firesweep at the time which she enjoyed too, but that was a completely different automotive experience. Honestly, when we broke up senior year I missed her Fiat more than I missed her.

My Grandfather had one. I hadn't listened to the sound of this engine for such a long time that as soon as you started it, I felt tears coming out of my eyes. This video literally brought me back to at least 25 years ago, when I was a child heading to my Grandpa's town in Southern Italy during Summer. This was beyond amazing, thank you.

My father always tells me about how they travelled from northern Switzerland to southern Italy with this car in summer for vacation. It took them over 24 hours! 24 hours in such a car 5 people, with the luggage tied on the roof and without AC. By todays standards that would not even be imaginable!

4:05 About the gear change indicators: they tell you where the gear should end, not start, so "III" means that's the end of 3rd and you should switch to 4th (makes sense when you look at "I" being at 25 km/h).

There's a reason why Lupin love the Fiat 500: it's an icon like him!

My son bought me a 2018 fiat 500 lounge , it’s the best small car I’ve been in. Thank you Robert xx

It was a brilliant design. Fit for purpose in the post era.

Glad you didn’t hit that bunny, the damage to the little Fiat would’ve been catastrophic 😱

I love that they kept the new one as close to the original as possible!

My father had Zastava version back in 80's . It was great small city car, capable for longer trips and also very reliable in winter snow covered roads...

When I was a kid my dad bought a new 1959 VW with 36 hp. I was 8 years old and there were 4 of us in the family. We lived in Germany and went on trips to Spain and Austria with it. Top speed was just over 70 mph. No A/C or any other amenities, but it worked and was reliable. When was in high school in 1968 my dad bought me a used 1958 VW. Same 36 hp engine, non-syncro 1st gear and nothing else. It was a great first car and could barely keep up with traffic. Mountain driving required 3rd gear for almost any incline and I drove up the Sierra Nevadas heading to Truckee< California at 45 mph floored. Down the next hill it would go over 80. Again a great car for a kid. Todays young people need A/C, automatic transmissions, power everything and all of the modern electronics, especially related to entertainment. Driving is now often in heavy traffic where automatic transmissions and entertainment systems are a help. I like the simple old cars and uncrowded days of the 50's 60's and 70's. This Fiat was a great car for the masses in a Europe that was emerging from the war. It beat a motorcycle. As a child in Germany I remember seeing a whole family on a motorcycle with a sidecar. Mom and dad on the bike and 2 kids in the sidecar. Luggage was strapped on back of the sidecar, so a small car like the Fiat 500, 2CV or VW was a real blessing.

These old micros look surprisingly fun for how small they are. 17 hp is actually a good amount of power in something that small and light.

I learnt my driving on my father's 1968 Standard Herald. It was so much fun back then. You made me nostalgic after watching you drive with thin steering and choke !! Thanks !!

This was my first car, in the 80s. A tireless, albeit a bit awkward, working horse, with a terrific loading capacity for its size. There was a time I remember loading in it six passengers plus me as driver.

What a delightful beacon of joy! Seeing this on the road is a stark contrast to the abyss of charmless, hostile machines that people movers have become

The secret of smooth driving this car is, you use the 1st gear to move on only, then you put the 2nd. It does not make any sense to accelerate on the 1st longer because of shortness of this gear. I‘ve spent many of hours in these cars and they are so much fun to drive… Especially if you compare them to all this modern plastic quiet boxes with no driving feel

As an avid Fiat lover, I adore this beautiful piece of vehicular engineering

My grandfather had this car, same model. Its now in our garage because some years before he passed away he restored it. I love this car so much :D

Absolutely adore making long journeys in it, although after a while you become one thing with the seat… I own a red L one, named “Filippo” (Philip, meaning “horse lovers”, pun intended). Fun fact: here in Italy more than 370k are still registered and traveling around, about 12 times more than electric cars.

When I was younger I had the opportunity to drive the 500's slightly more modern descendant, the 850 around Germany for a few weeks. It was an absolute hoot since you could (needed to?) drive it like Mario Andretti just to keep up with traffic. There was no excuse to not drive it flat out all of the time. Try doing that with most modern cars and you'll end up in jail. I think we've kind of lost touch with how little HP and speed you actually need to get around. With 250 HP sedans becoming the norm, we've forgotten how usable 50 or 60 HP can be.

the Italians, 50 year before of the smart and city car. incredible !

So fun seeing a little version of what was once the old equivalent of my little 2013 Fiat 500, such adorable cars and with so much character!

I love the contrast going from Roll Royce Silver Spur to a 1967 Fiat 500. Diversity in motoring is the coolest thing. Each brings a different experience/significance to the table

My wife and I rented one on our first trip to Italy in 1970. We drove it from Rome up Siena and Florence and everywhere in between. We stayed at the Villa Scciapienseri in Siena and returned for our 50th anniversary. I remember topping up the oil from a pint can. We saw plenty of 500’s of this vintage on our last trip especially on Sunday. As always thanks for the vid.

i love the engine sound, it's so characteristic, and the inteior is lovely! i really like this little car.

When we were stationed in Italy, we owned a 1966 and a 1968 Fiat 500 (cinquecento)-most fun we ever had! Loved them!

That 500 reminds me of a photo I saw years ago. An original run Mini was next to a 2000's era Mini Cooper. The 2000's era Cooper looked like a Peterbilt next to The 60's era Mini.

I was stationed in Sicily with the Navy around Y2K. Some of our Navy guys would buy those and cherry them out with chrome wheels, custom paint, racing paint schemes,, and loud sound systems. The Sicilians enjoyed that.

I don't even know how this video came up in my timeline, but it's truly amazing how this little city car from the 60s drives pretty well nowadays. Now I'm subscribed to this channel hoping for more videos like this one.

driving this car feels like it has a soul in it

Post war european "popular" cars have an utilitarian charm and cool factor the american luxo barges from 50's and 60's can't match in my opinion. Such two different worlds.

This makes me more excited than any million horsepower supercar

Just hearing it rev gave me a ...well, it was exciting. This is the kind of car we need today, not to mention that it was GLUED to the road on mountain roads!!!

In Europe there are still a lot of them, double clutch the gears and you can shift up and down, I drove mine from the Netherlands to Spain in 3 day's at holiday's, yep my first car, still like to see them. And yes there is a red oil press warning light. The oil system easy to maintain but impotant on this car.

You cant stop loving a FIAT 500 they just grabs your heart and stays there

It’s fun being able to drive a car flat out and not exceed the speed limit 😅 love it

It's crazy how these old cars needed Choke to start them. I sure love the mechanics of these toys

'Back in the day', there were tons of these in Greece as well. We used to take summer trips to Athens and Patras when I was a child/teen (from NY/NJ), and these 'Italian rollerskates' were ubiquitous!

I've always been a microcar fanatic, though I have never owned one. (Nearly bought a Subaru 360 back in '77.) Thanks for taking us along for the ride! Great video!

This has less horsepower than tiny john boats i've driven. Awesome, amazing what 17hp can do for a 1000lb car.

A 1967 FIAT 500 was my first car, back in 1977. Great car.

Here in Brazil, Fiat is very well known and famous here, not just this car, but all Fiat cars in general, including the Fiat 500

The lighter you are the faster this car goes:)

I really like your pov’s of these small classic cars, please try to do more of these!

In first gear, it whines like an old Jeep, I love that sound!

My grandpa used to own a similar model, it’s a family treasure now.

So much character you can’t help but smile when you see one

Had a 126 in 1995 - the most fun car I ever had, called it the city shark because its small wheelbase made the handling tricky (understeer, understeer suddenly so much oversteer) - it was sometimes biting you!

I had one in the 60's. It's a super mini car. Real classic. Handles well on the road for its time.

In my country there is quite a lot of these preserved and I mostly see them during the summer. This year I also went to a car show (there's some clubs dedicated to them) which featured this car along with others, mostly from the 1960s to 1980s

That's one of the awesomest cars ever. I enjoyed the sound of a 2-cylynder Fiat ever since I was a child. Seems you're really making it breathe.

I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting such an accurate and respectful description of this car by an American. My apologies for the prejudice and thank you Sir for your video, the 500 still matters so much to us Italians. Cheers.

My father went from rome to stokholm with this thing, with 2 friends!!! I want to drive a fiat 500, as an italian, this car is in my blood somehow, and i need to drive it once in my lifetime, im 21 now, i got time.

Got a lift in one of these when I was hitch hiking from Rome to Milan in Italy in 1970! Brilliant!!

Might just be me but I really love fiat 500s, new and old. Idk why but they just seem like super fun little cars, especially the Abarth 500, that thing seems super fun

What a time capsule and just an example at how pampered modern drivers are today. Motoring was so much more of an occasion back then, just lovely.

This beautiful machine had style, down to the last detail. I love it!

i grew up in a similar fiat 750 made in zastava, 25ks, you can still find them a lot. family of four, went go greece and croatia regularly from serbia. now it looks, and feels, like it was all a dream.

3:50 man that noise brings so many memories, I grew up inside a 1962 Giardiniera (wagon 500) that had that same exact growl. I can still smell it. Amazing little car, simpler, slower, happier times.

Another great video! I've recently drove one of these (exact same spec) in Italy and you've managed to transmit exactly the feeling you have behind the wheel. Lovely to see how they must have told you not to downshift :). For those watching and wondering why you were not downshifting: the gears are not synchronized, when shifting up the rev drop is mostly sufficient to let the gears engage, to downshift you need to follow a procedure the Italians call "doppietta" (double clutch): you need to push the clutch, put the gears in neutral, release the clutch, accelerate to rev-match the lower gear, press the clutch again (fast!) and then engage the lower gear, release clutch. While it's nothing too complex, it requires some practice and you will definitely grind a couple of times, so nothing to learn on a one off test drive (you can damage the gearbox, even though 500s have been grinding gears for decades in Italy by now!). Note that this procedure should technically be followed on upshifts as well, but it's only needed to speed up the gear change and not have to wait too much for the revs to drop. I promise once you learn how to do it it's very rewarding and can be relatively quick and effortless, you're basically in charge of everything the car does, even synchronizing the gearbox! Not the most comfortable to commute through a busy city, but a charming detail and memory of a simpler past

I had one of these years back, four of us took it on a road trip around our area, four big burly rugby types took its toll on the brakes and gears. I put her into a ditch, couldn’t reverse, so we all took a corner and lifted the car up, got her out the ditch, turned her around, and carried on. Good times, good times.

These were the best post war micro cars. Tons of charm and character, and actually usable. They lived on as the Fiat 126 for many years after they stopped the 500 (as seen in Eastern Europe and Cuba to this day). We had one in the 70’s and it was such a stoical little car. Probs wouldn’t want to crash one though…

This (well Fiat 600 but whatever), was a very popular car in former Yugoslavia, they even produced their own version of it (search Zastava 750). We called it “Ficho” and my parents had one for a while. I loved that red little car as a kid :)

Awwww. Gorgeous Lil car. We had one just like this one, in red. And we drove DISTANCE in it, happily, with no complaints 👍 it invariably puts a smile on your face!! They are still relatively popular over here, and still great for city driving. Thing is, if you know how to exploit the high revving little engine it's also fun to drive!

I turned 15 yesterday and it is on my bucket list to own this car in my lifetime

Back in the late 1970's, I used to drive to gigs (as a working musician) all over London, with my bass, a Fender Bassman combo and assorted accessories in one of these. Slow and noisy, but I got to love it!

My mom's family used to travel with a Fiat 500 My grandparents, at least two children if not three, and sometimes even with their dog, a St. Bernard A lot of people got rid of these little machines but now almost everyone regrets doing so

My grandpa used to have one of these, 500L model ("lusso"). With my grandma, pa and aunt (4 people) from Naples to Sicily (500km) took 2 days of travel. Welcome to 1969

My father had one. He got me from school with it everyday. All my classmates' parents had nicer and bigger cars but I loved that Fiat. It also broke down often, but for some reason we were very fond of it.

I am learning to drive recently and I think I like this bad boy.

I love this small old cars, the simplicity makes them so charming. Very different from the new big and dumb suvs

When I was in high school in Napoli Italy I had a 70 fiat cinquecento, we would cram 4 of us full grown American teenage boys in it and go everywhere. We would literally pick it up to move it.

I remember sitting in the back of one of these as a kid & the leg room was not too bad - but I had the whole back seat to myself so that helped!

amazing! my grandma had the 1969 version I managed to drove when I got my license, weird that lever startup and the neutral shifting. you can park this car between two Smarts.

This is why I love my little Panda 169 so much, its from 2008 and is so simple its fun! And very quirky to drive around town

Here in Spain we had the Seat 600 a licensed Fiat 600 that was first produced in 1957 till 1973.First people's car for families was the best seller of the period and was quite similiar to this one.

we had one of these in the old days. My dad grinded off the roof and we drove it in the fields, when I was like 8. Our neighborkid to this day has a split fingernail since we had to push it to start it, and it had no hood (engine is in the back in these things) and he pushed on the timing pulley. Then his finger was pulled between the wheel and the snare, made a full circle. He came out of it marginally unhurt, but his fingernail was broken in the length, and has remained that way the rest of his life.

My first car ever. My dad bought it in 1976, and I learnt how to drive with it. A red Fiat 500 R, the last version i guess. When I was 2 years old we had a terrifying accident. We were rammed by an Alfa Romeo on the highway and we hit the barrier. My mother was holding me (there were no child seats and no seatbelts at that time) and I hit the windshield with my head. But we survived. Unfortunately we had to demolish it in 2002 cause the chassis had got too rusty, impossible to fix.

Just stumbled across this and love your narrative! It's not full of the "oh no it has no air conditioning"- whining that most old car reviewers do, but actually shows the car from its brightest side. Thank you!

The large steering wheel on small cars is always hilarious !

Thanks for sharing this great experience with this classic little car. I ave the modern version but this looks even more fun!

Back in '77 when I visited Roma, these were all you heard buzzing along the roadways. Very cool engines the size of my Honda riding mower.

You know how most steering wheels are irregularly shaped now? They're sometimes flat on the bottom, wider on the sides, or the wheel is different thicknesses on the top and bottom? Well, none of that. Seeing 3:31 is the most satisfying thing ever.

My grandfather had one of these for like 20 years. We used to drive 2 hours up a mountain with 5 people in it no problem. Imagine driving a shopping cart at 30 mph. That's about what it feels like driving this. You get a really good sense of speed lmao 30mph in this feels fast.

Dude, I inherited my grandfather's '67 Fiat 500 and I have the luck to say that it is my first car and I learnt to drive in it... I can tell you, my sweet "Carolina", as I call her, is the best part of my days ❤️

I bet it’s all smiles when you drive on of these

Beautiful looking car. I've never seen one like this in person. :)

I love how our old lawnmower tractor had 5HP more than this, haha. In fact, our old 1926 Model T has 20HP! Also I didn't even notice until you said "I wouldn't dare drive this on Route 9" that you're toolin' it around in my area! :)

Used to own a mini and went on many adventures, friend had the one of theses. Brilliant for parking in citys

My grandpa owns the same car as shown in the video, only red. He told me when he passes away I'll own it, he's already let me drive it a few times and it is a joy to drive!

One would shut off the engine on downhill,to save fuel. Basic transportation.....fuel up,and go.

My dad bought one of these for £10 about 33 years ago. It was so rusty that when he got a flat tyre and jacked it up the car just folded in half.

This was built under license in Austria as the Steyr Puch 500. My parents drove this long distance from Vienna to the Adriatic coast :)

Drove that in Spain in the mid 80’s. A lot of fun

Now imagine this in some small italian town in the morning with the church bells ringing 😩

I want to see what the 30 hp version of thing can do if the 17 hp was not that bad

That thing is awesome. Small it may be, but it's definitely got personality. Keep it up man love your videos.