Greatness is a matter of opinion
AS A CLASSIC VEHICLE enthusiast, Robert Coucher admits in Octane 214 that he never really ‘got’ Fiat and asks what its last great car was
It’s always been extremely difficult for high-volume auto producers such as Fiat, Toyota, Volkswagen or General Motors to create truly ‘great’ automobiles. Success for a big manufacturer is measured in units of production and corporate longevity. In this regard, Fiat has been more successful than most and has produced some very good cars, including the 500, 600 and 124-series. The 124 sports cars of the ’60s and ’70s were strong competitors with the mid-priced British sports cars and were a step up in technical sophistication. But were they ‘great’ from an enthusiast’s perspective?
Cars worthy of that adjective are almost always within the exclusive domain of niche manufacturers. They tend to be low-volume and bear attributes and characteristics outside the realm of common pedestrian cars. This concept runs counter to the business of industrial conglomerates, whose bread and butter is measured in the production of
