Name That Car!

Today we have an easy one for you. Take a look at this shot and see if you can guess the identity of our mystery car before hitting the jump. Here's a hint- it's engine turns back time.

Did you guess? How about another hint- It has a Bertone-designed body, and shares its headlamps with a car that has 3 times the cylinder count.

That's right, it's a Fiat 850 Spider! The diminutive droptop, produced between 1966 and 1973 provided sporty, economical driving pleasure to thousands of people with no particular time requirements for reaching their destinations.

Starting out with an 817 cc, 42 hp motor in order to limbo under the U.S. emissions controls – which at the time didn't apply to engines below 50 c.i.d. – the engine in this '69 is actually the larger 903, providing a nose-hair yanking 52 ponies, but still requiring a down shift should more than one bee at a time hit the windshield. As we noted, this engine turns back time- like the corvair and a few others, the little four-banger spins counterclockwise, unlike the clockwise hula dance of most modern ICEs.

While a '69 would normally have the much less attractive raised and un-glazed sealed beams, an unplanned introduction to a freeway transition wall allowed the owner of this blue beauty to graft of the front clip of an earlier car, including those lovely headlamps- which also could be found illuminating the path of the contemporary Lamborghini Miura P400. Nice company indeed.

The interior is cozy, which is good as the heater doesn't do a whole hell of a lot, and the luxury of a real-wood dashboard is offset by the exposed attaching screw heads.

See, didn't we tell you that'd be easy?