First, I feel like I need to preface this by saying that I unashamedly love the Fiat Strada, also known as the Fiat Ritmo, and have always felt it was one of the best-looking, best-designed little hatchbacks of the late 1970s and early 1980s. I’ve gone on record stating this, and I’m willing to prove it with my tangelo-sized fists, if I have to. I can’t, however, say that I think these cars were actually good, at least in the sense of a car as an object that actually works, and doesn’t, you know, break down all the time or refuse to move or appear to have been built with something approaching the care of a chimpanzee tearing away drywall to get to some oranges hidden inside. A reporter at a Miami television station reviewed a Strada, and dear god this has to be the most disastrous review of a car I’ve seen. Holy crap.
Seriously, just watch this fascinating disaster:
I know we live in an age where people bitch about panel gaps and stitching and fan noise and other objectively minor details about modern cars, but holy crap I’ve never encountered a new car loaned to me as a member of the press as gloriously shitty as this poor Strada. Let’s watch the painful scene of the reviewer, Bob Mayer, trying to start it:
That sound! That sad sound of cranking, fecklessly, uselessly, only to have to start the car by getting the camera crew to push it:
They needed emergency services three times, a tow truck once, and two batteries? What the hellI? How was that possible? Why didn’t Fiat or the Fiat dealer they got the car from try to figure out what was causing a new battery in a new car to drain instead of just slapping in a new battery?
Incredibly, it gets worse. After generously noting that the car handles pretty well and has decent acceleration, Mayer points out that it’s hard to read the speedometer, because the steering wheel alignment is off:
Holy shit. That’s astounding. Just for reference, here’s how the steering wheel should be oriented when the car is driving in a straight line:
How is this possible? Again, this is a new car, one that Fiat knew was being used in a review! That wheel alignment is off by, what, 90°? That’s not slightly out of line, that’s what you’d expect to see if you had just finished driving over an entire playground and then drove over about a dozen set of railroad tracks at full speed before a quick, fun drive up a few staircases. This is absolutely absurd.
Oh, and they only saw about 20 mpg, aalmost 30% less than the expected 28. But, really, that’s the least of the problems of a car that had to be push-started in its own damn review. No wonder Fiat cratered in America in the ’80s. It’s like absolutely nobody at the company was capable of giving even the slightest, flimsiest of shits about quality control.
So why do I still want one so badly? What is wrong with me?
I browsed the comments at the Youtube link and found this gem:
Never mind that the Strada clearly failed at the simple “get in it and drive” part of the test, but most Millennials learned to drive before those were commonplace features…
I mean we did have entertainment systems, those stereos with pixelated dolphins.
I think a lot of people forget that the oldest of our generation are now in their mid 40s. For whatever reason, “Millennial” seems to be stuck in a lot of people’s minds as a 20something perpetual college student in skinny jeans blowing fat vape clouds everywhere
People are also starting to use “Boomer” to mean “any old person at any time in history” rather than a specific generational cohort born during a specific period of time.
Because people are idiots
Especially boomers
The comment greatfallsgreen found is absolutely, chefs-kiss-perfect Boomer energy. Even if it was written by a Gen-X’er. It’s every dumb cartoon of a kid staring blankly at a book and asking where the screen is.
If we could harness Boomer energy for power we’d put fossil fuels out of business overnight.
That video was hilarious!
Even though the paint “had gloss” even at 480i resolution you can see the orange peel texture. But it did manage to drive in the rain without comment about leaks, so that’s something, I guess. “The wipers cleared rain off the windshield!” “The turn signal illuminated the correct lights”!! LOL. The best thing about this car was the wheel design, shown in the last picture, honestly.
This is one case where I’d approve of restomodding it, because anything you do to it would be an improvement.
Jason, if you do end up getting one of these, that 1500cc engine will drop right into your Yugo.
He may need to transplant in the other direction.
you nailed it “nobody at the company was capable of giving even the slightest, flimsiest of shits about quality control”. have you ever driven an x1-9?
I DD an ’81 X-19 for a few years. Damn fun car! It really was a “baby Ferrari” (308 which I’ve also driven). The FIAT while much lower on power was lighter and more tossable in a cheap slow car fast way.
The X-19 was surprisingly reliable too. I’m sure the EFI and electronic ignition were a big part of its reliability. This was in California so no rust issues. Maybe earlier carbureted and or points based distributor models weren’t so good. It got great for its time gas mileage too.
I can only imagine what the X-19 would be like retrofitted with a modern 500 1.4T drivetrain and twice the power. A few years ago a pair of X-19s in decent shape came up for sale on my local CL for cheap. Being in CA I didn’t want to tackle those CARB headaches, plus there were lots of other good and rational spousal based reasons. Even still what an awesome Covid project that would have been for the right person.
Oh well, coulda, woulda shoulda…
Edit: come to think of it a retrofitted X-19 would probably be like one of those supercharged Gen1 Toyota MR2s. Those looked like fun too.
God, I loved my X1/9!
Let’s see:
Mechanic at dealer wrecked it, they “fixed” it, developed a “blend stripe” down the center of the frunck cover.
Roof leaked, they did replace the weatherstripping and it was fine.
Broke the plastic passenger window crank several times rolling window up or down from the driver seat.
Ignition started shutting off randomly, causing car to “blink” at night. Replaced under warranty.
Both hydraulic master cylinders failed and required replacement in the 3 years I had the car.
Fuel injection fuse blew while driving leaving me staring at the non-running engine with no idea what was wrong.
Replaced the funky square shifter and modern steering wheel with a wooden shifter and Momo wheel, changed the personality of the car.
Loved that little tin wedge…
Or a 128SL like I had. Brilliant to drive, dreadful at everything else.
I dated someone who bought one of these new. I actually postponed breaking off the relationship because I just couldn’t bring myself to do that to someone who had one of these. She was in enough pain.
For those of you old enough, if you drove a low powered car in those days, you knew the AC would sap all your power and you would have to limp along on a hot day. Her Strada, would stall when you turned the heater on. Actually it would do that when you would turn the lights or radio on too. I think I still have the left rear door handle somewhere. It was a prize I got for being the first person to have tried to open that door.
On the upside, it was a cool pumpkin colour…
I chalk the 20mpg up to running the a/c a lot – Mayer mentions this, and being Miami-based he was running the air conditioning constantly in almost every test car.
Now I’m stuck in a rabbit hole of watching all these Bob Mayer “Behind the Wheel” reviews from 1979-1980.
It’s hilarious how bad every car is. At least, every car has defects that would just be unacceptable today. Dents, bad paint touchups, loose trim, broken vents, etc.
Malaise era indeed.
The 15 year old NOS electric converted Renault Dauphin was hilarious, would be like somebody charging real, new car money for a Coda that had been sitting in a warehouse since the company folded. Except even worse, because the Tiffany Mark 5 (Henney Kilowatt Mk 2) was dangerously slow and had nearly unusable range
That is what we call a “hill parker.”
I’ve had a few of those.
The ones where you praise the car gods for manual transmissions every time you manage to get to work on time.
Well, great. Now I want one, too.
I had the later 105tc and I loved it. It went pretty well for the day and handled well. The experience was bookended by disappointment though. Blown head gasket from rotten frost plugs on the drive home. Jammed gearbox when I finally got rid of it. At that stage it was completely rusted out as well.
Literally every cell in my body is a screaming Fiat appologist and I’m just watching this like “what? It’s fiiiine!” Steering wheels are fine at 90° off. A/C squeaks are nbd. It bump started just fine!
I knew many people with Seat Ritmos growing up (the Spanish version of the Strada). Other than mufflers that seemed to come from factory already pre-rusted, the cars were actually rather reliable.
It must be that legendary Spanish craftsmanship…
When I was a financial auditor at deloittes in 1981 my number 2 had a Strada. We went to a stocktake and the car stopped randomly. I stared under the bonnet and found a distributor in the same place as on my previous car, a Mini. Right where the rain hits it. I cleaned it up with the back of my keys and the car started immediately. “My hero” she said. I was happy all day counting glue. Car was absolute shite.
I feel like I’m channeling Bob Mayer’s review here, every time I have to explain my poor vehicle choices to my father in law.
I’m just glad to know that I’m not the only one who has a four piece test luggage set.
Nice that it can fit three of those pieces at least.
Valuable information there.
Here’s the saddest part. Somebody test drove that very car and said, “This will do.”
Well, at least the paint “did have gloss”.
I feel sorry for Bob, especially when the car would not start.
“Fiat…where quality is the least of our problems…”
It’s Friday. Perhaps if I labor diligently over my phone keyboard throughout the weekend into early Monday morning, I will be able to provide a sufficient answer to your final question. But, probably not.
And Fiat stood out as having exceptionally, atrociously bad build quality in an era when “only a few paint runs” “properly tucked in headliner” and “no frayed carpet edges” counted as notable quality improvements in Motorweek’s Pontiac T1000 review. I meant people were used to accepting garbage and just living with it, especially in a small car, but Fiats were built like garbage that had been set on fire, peed out, and then somehow given cancer.
My mom’s Peugeot 505 wagon came with the steering wheel installed upside down. And the dealer didn’t fix it during their prep, we had to bring it back in to get it fixed as a warranty claim.
Not having learned anything from my parents’ mistakes, my first car was a Peugeot 405. The steering wheel was right side up, but the little horn buttons on the wheel were upside down. I left them like that.
I never realized the lower trim 405s had horn buttons. (Maybe this was for the US market?) The Mi16 (which I have) has the horn activated by pushing in the turn signal stalk, which was pretty common on French cars of the time.
Who can say no to those cute door handles?
I dont care what he says because he doesnt smoke the same cigarettes as me. Frankly this is the kind of in depth dull fact laden review we need. But since journalists no longer exist and everyone is a look at me influencer ( not you guys) it is more about hype than substance. This guy does come off as a journalism student doing a class project with old donated equipment.
Dave coming in hot with the blanket stereotypes. It’s shocking, really.
This is the content that brings me joy, and back for more.
Thanks Torch!
A bit of peyote and a summer day drive across Arizona without working A/C will cure you of this obsession very quickly. God these were complete shit.
Did that sans peyote. Not fun
Change the drug to mushrooms, the car to a Topaz and the state to Texas and I wholeheartedly agree. Wait.. what are we talking about?
Yeah, that’s a trip best taken in something with adequate horsepower and the proper colouring.
A red 1973 Chevrolet Caprice Convertible would do.