From The South East Queensland Correspondent: Fiat 124 Spider

We're back!  After an IT-related hiatus, the UMPH engine room - that's to say the office MacBook Pro - has had its screen replaced and the slow, aged iPad has been put out to YouTube-viewing and social media-checking pasture.  That means that we'll hopefully be able to put a bit of content out again, on an at least semi-regular basis.

Kicking off our renewed coverage is this classic Pininfarina-designed Fiat 124 Spider, which is timely considering how popular recent Fiat- and Alfa-related posts have been.  It's not a local car, though, coming to us courtesy of the SEQ correspondent and having been captured at a cars 'n' coffee in Brisbane, Queensland, several months ago.  

It’s a recurrent UMPH theme but the less-fancied Fiat Spider really, really is a more than adequate alternative to Alfa Romeo’s equivalent rag top sports car.  Both manufacturers’ roadsters - based on their respective sporty coupes (please see: https://uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com/2022/08/fiat-124-cc-sport-coupe.html) - are very similarly specced, each offering twin-cam four pots, five-speed manual transmissions, disc brakes all ‘round, and rear wheel drive.  From memory, neither one features rack and pinion steering, though.       

Late ‘60s through to early ‘80s build quality - especially in terms of rust protection and arguably electrics, too - probably leaves more than a bit to be desired for both marques, leaving the largest point of differentiation as aesthetics and perceived cachet.   Here at UMPH, the Fiat wears the beauty pageant crown, although it is acknowledged that the original Alfa Duetto or “Boat Tail” Spider is a particularly pretty car with its sublime tapered derrière.  

If judging looks is an exercise in subjective futility, trying to make a determination on cachet is nigh on impossible.  It is, however, reasonable to say that Fiat loses out to Alfa in this area, with the latter having a long and romantic history of making beautiful vehicles, whereas the former provides the vast majority of Italian-made bread and butter family hacks, commercial vehicles and even tractors.  This isn't a bad thing, mind you; Lamborghini was also a farm machinery and air conditioner manufacturer before branching out into supercar production, and Alfa does make sedans and has built vans and even a jeep-style four wheel drive.  Jezza Clarkson's assertion that you can't be a true petrol head unless you've owned an Alfa probably adds to their mystique, too.

Today's Spider - a left-hand-drive import - is an absolute stunner, featuring unblemished paint, crisp, perfectly aligned panels and a striking red interior.  It's not for UMPH convince readers that the Fiat is more attractive than its Alfa contemporary but the the SEQ Correspondent's photos do make a pretty convincing argument for that position!    

If anyone wants to explore the theme further, here's a link to an Alfa Spider of a similar age: https://uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com/2022/06/from-canberra-correspondent-alfa-spider.html.  It's not a Duetto, though; this one features the later cam-back styling that carried through the vast majority of model's amazing 28 year production run that ended in 1994.  It also has an unfair advantage in the form of a set of Momo Vega wheels which, as we all know, makes every '70s or '80s Fiat or Alfa just that bit more perfect!

U M P H

(uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au.)

Photos by SEQC Peter R (Fiat) and the CCC - aka Gor (Alfa).