Fiat 500

I happened to come across a very familiar car on my trip. A Fiat 500. Not the ones being advertised, but a 1948 model! 

I knew it was a Fiat 500 only now.

I recognised it from my childhood (circa. 1959) because my father bought one. We had it for just a week before my father sold.

We did have a 1948 Ford V8. But, like all fathers of all eras , my mother's insistence that we own a second car finally broke down his defenses and so he went ahead a bought us a second car.Financial constraints dictated he picked something cheap.This Fiat seemed to fit the bill of all his requirements. I think it cost him all of Rs.2000.00

As soon as he bought it, my father packed my mother and six of us siblings into it on a trip to Peermade.(Enroute to Thekkady) By the time we reached midway, the radiator water had to be changed about 10 times!! 

On the ghat roads, every half kilometer traveled caused steam to come out of every opening on the bonnet. In those days vehicles on the road were as plentiful as a citizen friendly Indian budgets. So it was probably after quite a lot of steam inhalation that we met another car. In those days no car owner worth speaking about traveled without THE driver. The DRIVER was a demi-god who was one of the few individuals of those times who had any knowledge of what was under the bonnet of a car.My father having packed his loved ones into the Fiat like an over packed can of sardines, found no place for his own demi-god, unfortunately. The car a taxi from Kanjirapally, was one of those war era Plymouths or Chevorlets.

I still remember the heavenly being stepping out of the other car and walking up to our leaking pressure cooker of a Fiat. We all held our collective breath while he pulled the clips/clasps on the two bonnet wings and swung them up. For a few seconds he was lost to view due to the steam that engulfed him. But he brushed the steam aside, made a loud snort of disgust and asked my father what kind of fool he was to buy this Fiat. My father was enraged, demi-god or not, an insult had been thrown at him and he would have taken up the issue to a physical level. But luckily the DRIVER continued and told him that this model of Fiat had no water pump. 

My father was stunned.He asked the DRIVER if he was sure? A radiator, yes. A fan yes, A fan belt yes.But no water pump. This car was just able to cope with a single passenger on level roads only.Uphill never.Good in Sahib's on country for taking out Madama on a short trip to market but not fit for India to cart wife and children anywhere.Another loud snort of disgust.

Later on when older I came to understand what all this was about. This car was the predecessor of what came out much later as the'Bug' Fiat, which too had a similar cooling system. The convection currents in the water were supposed to move the water through the radiator! My father had no other option but to load us into the taxi. With the help of the taxi's Cleaner*, a rope was run between the front of the Fiat and the rear bumper of the taxi. * The Cleaner is another, but lesser demi-god of those days who traveled on the platform outside the doors of olden cars.He had the job of working the starting handle when the car needed to be started.If that did not work he pushed the car till the driver could get the engine going.Push starting was not so difficult with 8 or 6 cylinder low compression engines of those times.When he had free time he would even make attempts to give the car a wash.*

So, like a retreating army we returned. All of us in the taxi.Except my father and the Cleaner following faithfully under tow till the level ground of Kanjirapally. Then it was back home with a dozen more water changes on the way. That was the last time any of us rode that Fiat. It stood forlornly in front of our house for a couple of days before the car broker was able to get somebody more foolish than my father to come and buy it. 

Probably if it was wrapped and stored to the present, it would have been worth a packet as an antique. Excellent reading, brought the memories of my first baptism to cars our very own FIAT Premier Padmini way back long ago in my life (1985 I suppose) when my father too had bought a 2nd hand car & took me by surprise one day to a very desolete god forsaken road without informing my mother about him giving me the 1st driving lesson & the wheels of the car which I was always asking him to drive and get my 1stdriving lessons which incidently was very short one.

All the while the car ran well from the garage of the bunglow where we stayed (for 30 years my father served in Gokak Mills Belgaum) to a nearby remote place an unpronouncible village named Godchinmalki and gave me the car to drive. Until then I too never knew why we were heading on this road into the wilderness and never knew he had plans to give me the car for my 1st driving lessons. Until then I was his official cleaner.

I started off well by putting th car in the 1st gear and let go the clutch and it stalled & died on me. Got a good scolding from my father to release the clutch gently and then we took off and after some time and it all looked wonderful to me, the rush of the adraneline and all and suddenly the car it came to a stand still for no apperent reason what so ever.

We both looked at each other & he had no reason to blame me for this. i remember him saying now what? He asked me to crank & I remember trying couple of cranking. He said get off & let me try starting and all that coaxing & cajoling by cranking the car just produced a lot of grr grr grr and nothing.

Then it was time for his master's command for the faithful slave - PUSH!!!

I remember pushing, pushing & pushing and it was scorching hot aftrnoon sun and after a long hard push & him trying to jump start failed on us & I honestly fainted & fell on the road due to extreme dehydration.

I was knocked off for a long time and him running to me & pulling me up & remember putting me into the back seat and trying to desperately trying to revive me back to breathe & back to life. After a lot of time I slowly got back to my senses & he asked me if I was alright and guess what there was no water inside the car to drink. I was so thristy never in all my life I realized how precious water was until I never had.

The place was so desolete & we were so far away from civilization and we did not know what to do. After a very long wait we found a 2 wheeler coming & hitched a ride to the nearest village leaving my father behind to wait inside the car sitting in a hot furnace & from the village to a far away small town took a local bus and managed to find a mechanic and came in his 2 wheeler and he opened up the bonnet and found the culprit. My father was pretty worried due to my 3 hour absence. The mechanic found a whole lot of dust in the Carborator.

Luckily the mechanic knew what he was doing & cleaned the carb & got the car running. He just said luckily we had not run the battery dry trying to crank crank. Father drove the car back & we reached home safe and got a good ear full of blasting from my mother for not informing her about the planned baptism of giving driving lessons & putting her son through hell!!!

Anyway thats history now. With that I am now signing off & shutting down and packing off from Cochin now back to Coimbatore (200 km drive) now in my GTX. I still remind my father about that day now when he sits in front with me some time.