AutoItalia – August 2019

58 auto italia

mission creep in terms of size and ambition.

Giacosa also feared it would be a distraction

when more important new models (like the

124) needed to be brought to market.

Italy's economic miracle was already

showing signs of running out of steam in

1963, when initial thoughts of a successor to

the Fiat 2300 were mooted. The 2300 was a

good car but not a great one; a product of

mid-1950s thinking, it was neither fast nor

refined enough to go head-to-head with the

best Mercedes had to offer.

By 1966, the 130’s basic outline had been

established: quad headlights set in an

assertively angled nose, and a Mercedes-like

'greenhouse' with deep windows for good all-

round vision. Aurelio Lampredi was charged

with creating the V6 engine, a task well

within his capabilities as a former Ferrari

engine designer. He found himself creating

Lancia Flaminia and Alfa Romeo 2600. The
big Lancia's formal dignity was a template
for the character of the 130, and one could
argue that the Fiat was a kind of
rationalised Flaminia. Indeed, had its
creators been able to anticipate Fiat’s
November 1969 takeover of Lancia, then

perhaps the 130 would have emerged as a
worthy Lancia-badged Flaminia successor.
When the 130 was born, Dante Giacosa
was on the verge of retirement from Fiat
after 40 years of service. His influence at
Fiat was akin to that of Issigonis at BMC, and
like the designer of the Mini, he had little
interest in large cars, preferring clever small
ones with mass appeal, where the
restrictions of size and budget tested the
ingenuity of his team. Thus, he harboured
grave concerns about the success of the
130, and the project certainly suffered

the 130's new 2.8-litre 60-degree V6 at the

same time as the iron block 2.4-litre 65-

degree V6 for the Dino 246 GT and Fiat Dino.

That Lampredi designed both is the only

common factor between the two units, yet

the misconception that the 130 has a Ferrari

engine follows it to this day.

The brief for the engine design was that it

had to be a refined and sophisticated short-

stroke unit with no unnecessary

complication: no Dino-like quad camshafts

but just a single cam on each bank, driven by

a toothed rubber belt. Softly tuned on its

8.3:1 compression ratio, this was no sports

car engine but an Italian interpretation of a

Cadillac or Rolls-Royce power unit. It was

naturally paired with an automatic gearbox,

making the 130 the first Fiat – indeed the

first Italian car of any description – to be

designed around one. For traditionalists,

“

Had the 130’s creators anticipated Fiat’s 1969 takeover of Lancia, it

would perhaps have emerged as a worthy successor to the Flaminia

”