Shed of the week focuses today on one of the most controversial designs of recent years – the Fiat Coupe.
The Coupe was a Chris Bangle project during his tenure at FIAT. On this evidence, we should have known really that his plans for BMW would be anything but hum drum.
Even today, this angular coupe looks like little else on the road, from its buxom headlamp covers to the squared off tail. Love or loathe Bangle’s work, there’s no denying his designs are distinctive. It’s said that Mr B considered being a Methodist minister before following a career in car design, and if you’re ever fortunate enough to witness one of his sermons on design, his inspirations and his beloved sketch books, then he’d probably have made his mark in that world too.
As a mainstream coupe with front wheel drive and parts bin engineering, the FIAT Coupe didn’t have the most promising of births as a drivers’ car. Nevertheless, it always did well in group tests of the time, and never more so when powered by the warbling in-line ‘five’ cylinder turbo engine that usually gave it a healthy performance advantage compared to its rivals. Sadly, Shed can’t afford such motive force, and has to settle for the original four pot complete with turbo, although it’s far from slow.
So what we have here is an old FIAT that’s described as requiring TLC, complete with the potential horrors of a two litre turbo engine, all for the measly price of a grand? Not even Shed can realistically recommend shelling out under such circumstances. Nevertheless, doesn’t mean we don’t salute this most original of 1990s coupes…
Advert: fiat coupe turbo-16v turbo, 106k, loads of history inc hand books. Full elec pack, sunroof, 2 owners from new (I’m 2nd owner), full lthr. Full head rebuild inc new valves/gaskets/re-skim (done by previous owner), completely standard. Tax- august2007/mot- sept 2007. 4 tyres, (no sound system!). Bad bits: dent on drivers door; couple of other minor bits but generally sound;coil packs gone need replacing drives like its misfiring, no time to repair! hence price: £1000 no offers