The Fiat 600 was first introduced in 1955 and continued in production until 1969, by which time more than 2.6 million of them had been made in Fiats Mirafiori plant in Turin. Not as attractive (in my opinion) as it's even smaller Fiat stablemate, the 500, the 600 was slightly more practical and almost as cheap to run. In common with the original VW Beetle, the 600 had a rear mounted 4 cylinder engine driving the rear wheels. Unlike the Beetle, the Fiat's engine was watercooled, which meant the small Fiat had a decent heater (unlike the Beetle which always had poor cabin heating, a common problem in air-cooled cars). Initially the engine was 633cc in size, giving a top speed of 95kmh, but for the 600D version (produced from 1960 on) the engine was enlarged to 767cc giving a top speed of 110kmh.
Initially the 600 and the later 600D had "suicide doors" (a term referring to doors which hinge at their rear edge instead of from the front, and which were thought to be more dangerous if they accidentally opened while moving as it would be more likely that the passenger or driver could fall out) but from 1964 these were no longer legal and hence from then on the 600D had conventionally hinged doors. The model shown here by Revell is one of the later 600Ds as it has the front hinged doors.
In 1956, Fiat introduced a variant of the 600 called the Multipla. This was an unusual looking vehicle which amazingly for such a small car had room for six people including the driver. To achieve this using the 600s chassis, the Multipla had a "one-box" shape (as opposed to the two box shape of the 600, which had a separate bonnet to the main body) which saw the driver and the front seat passenger sitting in front and above of the front wheels. An advanced concept for it's time, the idea of a compact car with increased seating capacity had become popular again in recent years with 6 and 7 seater cars such as the Opel/Vauxhall Zafira, the Ford S-Max, the Renault Megane and of course the latest Fiat Multipla.
Another variant of the 600 was the extremely rare Fiat 600 Jolly. Fiat shipped a small number of 600s to the Italian coachbuilder Ghia who converted them into open roofed "beach" cars. Like the Citroen Mehari and the Mini Moke, they had no proper roof, and additionally all four seats were made of wicker. Fewer than 100 are thought to exist today and good examples fetch big prices on the collectors market today. They were intended for use by the wealthy often to be carried on large yachts and used when in port. Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onasis owned one. Costing twice as much as a regular Fiat 600 meant their appeal was limited when new.
The 600 was built in Spain under license by SEAT, and was also made under license in Argentina and Yugoslavia. The SEAT version is also made in 1:18th by Revell and it is almost identical to the Fiat original.
Revell I find make interesting models of small classic cars such as this Fiat (and it's SEAT derivative) for a budget price. The scale and stance of the model are accurate, but some of the finer details such as the wheels, interior and the engine, are quite basic. Definitely a good budget model however and a nice addition to the "Small Cars" part of my collection.
As I'm currently in the middle of a house move (August 2006) all my models are packed away in storage so I'm not able to examine this model properly to fairly mark it according to my rating system. Hence the ratings below are blank, but over all it is generally above average in most categories. Once my collection is out of storage I'll add a proper ratings scale to this review.
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