#motoguzzi #fiat500 #history
Our story begins sometime in the late 1950s. Italy was going through a period of explosive economic growth, during which more and more people each year could afford to buy Fiat's new small cars, the 600 and the 500.
But, although the country as a whole was doing very well for itself, the same couldn't be said about the Italian motorcycle industry, which had to all but reinvent itself. Until then, the bulk of Moto Guzzi and the rest of the Italian motorbike industry's business had been selling small-displacement 'bikes to those who could not afford an automobile: a market that, with the average Italian's rapidly increasing living standards, was quickly drying up.
Moto Guzzi's technical department, headed by the engineer Giulio Cesare Carcano, got busy exploring new products and ventures for the company's future, one of which was a 90° v-twin designed in 1958 and meant to be tested on a Fiat 500 owned by engineer Carcano himself.
The idea was to somehow lure Fiat into offering a special, sporty version of the 500 equipped with engines supplied by Moto Guzzi.
Fiat tested the prototype for three months, after which it was returned to Moto Guzzi with a positive note about the car's performance, but nothing else. With Karl Abarth already covering the market for go-faster Fiat derivatives with great success, it's fair to assume that Fiat's management had zero interest in dealing with Moto Guzzi, whose engine project was then consigned to the dustbin of history.
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