Fiat Italy’s largest car plant, Turin in northern Italy is the company’s headquarters. The brand name is an acronym for Fabricca Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian Car Factory Turin)

Major milestones in the life of the factory:

Founded in 1899 by Giovanni Agnelli , the factory initially produced tanks and aircraft. In the early 1890s, the company started out as a factory for engineers and engineers, but after the war, as everywhere else in Europe, that changed. In 1889, after the war in Europe, the company started to concentrate on mass production for civilians.

In 1957 the Cinquecent (500 in English) was introduced, which would later become the Italian people’s car. It was produced continuously until 1975.

In 1966, the Fiat factory signed an agreement with the Soviet Union to build a factory in Togliatti, where the Ladas, the Zastavas, were built in Yugoslavia under the licence of the Fiat 124. Or Polski Fiattok in Poland.

In 2014 they merged with Chrysler to form an Italian-American joint venture. Interestingly, the world famous football team Juventus is also owned by the Agnelli family. Its shirt sponsor is Jeep, which is part of the group.

It’s no exaggeration to say that our model is the most important sports car of the 1970s in Europe. It was the model that gave the average person the chance to experience the racing car experience and not just buy a tin can.

In the 1950s, Fiat bought the Bianchi bicycle and motorcycle factory. Thus was born the autobianchi which became the test ground for the Fiat factory. As a test production was carried out under the Bianchi brand and if it worked it could come out as Fiat. That’s how our X1/9 was originally designed for Bianchi. It was developed from the 1969 A112 Runabout concept by Bertone under the direction of designer Marcelo Gandini.

It was around this time that Fiat began to sense that the final agony of the baby Ferrari on duty, the 850 Spider, was approaching. So it quickly dusted off the A112 Runabout’s design, fitted a proper windscreen and doors, fitted roll-over headlights to the front and put a hard top on it. The most important step was then to bring the bodywork up to the then-fresh safety standards of the US market – more on that in the box, below. Finally, the finished car was fitted with a 1.3 engine, slightly larger than the original 1.1, with 75 bhp, and launched as the Fiat X1/9 in 1972.

It was produced from 1972 to 1982, 140500 units were produced. Our model has a 1290 cc engine. It was 118Nm, 75 hp. Maximum speed was 170km/h.  The bodywork was made in Berton’s factory and then delivered to Fiat’s Lingotto plant for final assembly.