AutoItalia – August 2019

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too late, into a luxury class suddenly awash

with Mercedes-challenging saloons, notably

the new Opel Diplomat, BMW 2500/2800 and

Jaguar XJ6. All showed that the European

large saloon market had evolved to

emphasise driver appeal as much as luxury.

While the momentum was certainly

towards 'sports saloons', the imposingly

angular Fiat 130 remained an essentially

formal car, pitched at the man who might

employ a driver during the week and take the

wheel himself at the weekends. In terms of

luxury, detail refinement and roominess, the

130 was really half a class above most of its

rivals. It matched Mercedes and perhaps even

Rolls-Royce in these regards, rather than

C

onceived in the early 1960s, the
Fiat 130, or centotrenta, was a
product of the optimism and
growth that had fuelled the so-
called ‘Italian Economic Miracle’
since the early 1950s. Launched in 1969, it’s
now reached its golden anniversary. Is it still
one of the most misunderstood and
underrated Fiats of all time?
Misunderstood? I think so. Designed and
constructed to the highest contemporary
standards, Fiat’s mission was not to make an
Italian Ford Zodiac but to give Italy a top
contender in the luxury 3.0-litre saloon
class; a true flagship.
Commercially speaking, the 130 was born

BMW, never mind Opel or Ford.

Sadly, the market did not see it that way.

The Jaguar and BMW went on to define the

big saloon landscape for the next decade,

long after the 130 saloon had been killed off

in 1976. Somehow, although it had many

ardent admirers among motoring

connoisseurs, no amount of revisions and

improvements patched up the 130's image in

the eyes of the wider buying public.

Here, said the critics, was yet another

example of the Italians’ inability to address

the requirements of buyers in the luxury

class. The historical evidence for this

peculiarly Italian blind spot was there in the

miserable sales figures of the soon-to-die