Saturday, December 19, 2009

Comparing cheap sportscars in 1969 - Fiat 850 Coupé wins

Imagine living back in the 60ties, actually in 1969 to be specific. You had saved some money, let's say DM 7'000 (€ 3'500), which probably was quite a lot of money at that time. You were looking for an affordable sportscar, a Coupé. Well this could have been your choice:
Fiat 850 Coupé
Ford Capri 1.3
Opel Kadett Coupé 1.1
Daf 55 Automatic
The cars couldn't be more different. The Fiat 850 Coupé was really a sports car outperforming all the others with 18 seconds from 0-100 km/h (0-62 MPH). The Daf was following with 22 s, the Carpi with 22.7s and the Opel was the slowest with 26 s. Top speed was 148 km/h for the Fiat, 130 for the Kadett, 138 for the Daf and 133 for the Capri. Interesting the weight (empty): Fiat 749 kg, Opel Kadett 755 kg, Daf 55 795 kg and the Ford Capri 920 kg. The test in Hobby 10/69 revealed the Ford Capri as the family price winner, but the Fiat 850 was really the best sportscar in this round. An uncle of mine owned one at that time I was really impressed by the performance and noise of this car.

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