When we think about Italian car culture, it’s mostly the sports car from illustrious marques such as Ferrari, Maserati and Lamborghini that spring to mind. But it’s Fiat that can look back at the most diverse catalogue, from microcars and beach toys to icons of style and elegance. In the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, the top Italian carrozzerie queued up for the chance to design coachwork for Fiat’s latest wares, resulting in a multitude of drastically different shapes on a plethora of different cars. In their own distinctive and interesting ways, Fiat’s cars – be them styled by Zagato, Vignale, Pininfarina or Boano – always epitomised the cultural trends of the time. Incidentally, at its auction of The Elkhart Collection in October, RM Sotheby’s will offer a mouth-watering assembly of Fiats with which you could build quite the collection. For today’s feature story, we’ve picked our favourites, which include the sensational 8V ‘Supersonic’ and the jet set Shellette.

Alex Easthope
Deputy Editor