1959 Fiat
I'm pretty sure that's a Fiat-Abarth Allemeno (sp?) spider. They were steel bodied & had a 750 pushrod engine. I was at a gymkhana with my Fiat 600 when one of these showed up to run (early 1960's). A car salesman brought the car from his dealership to see what it could do. It was "Corvette day" at the event, and the quickest one did a 2:18. The Abarth ran a 2:07 practice lap, and pulled into the pits steaming...I was familiar with this problem with my 600 & took a quick look under the car. The salesman was no mechanic at all, so I offered to fix it for him if he'd give me a ride around the course. He agreed, so I propped open the bimetallic spring controlled trapdoor (that was the radiator inlet) with a popsicle stick tied in place with a piece of wire. The temp dropped right down & I got my ride. He ended up with a 1:58 official run. I still remember that HUGE chronometric tach!
Brian, "in da UP"
