This FIAT is a revamp of the FIAT1800 released the previous year. The casting is the same and you can see on the baseplate there the casting has been adapted to show the new model name. The colour is changed from yellow to mauve, it gets jewelled lights, a venetian blind in the  back window and the new spun hubs, all of which improve the car a great deal.

In this new guise it was produced from August 1961 through to 1963. There are no listed variations.

SPRING SUSPENSION

SEATS

STEERING WHEEL

VENETIAN BLINDS

HEADLAMP REFLECTORS

I suppose it's confession time.

The premise of my collection is to gather all the decent Corgis from 1956 through to when there stopped being decent Corgis - I've defined that more fully on the Collection Home Page. On that page I also state that I'm looking for Corgis to complete my collection and that they should be in good, playworn condition. This is mainly to keep down costs but it is also a sop to the 'Toy Story II' theory that toys are toys, not museum pieces and (if it is still OK to say this nowadays) I am genuinely fond of children and the fact that an item in my collection has once been owned and valued by a child gives the item a history and the whole collecting thing becomes less sterile.

This item though is an exception. This is a full-on, never touched by a child, mint-in-box example bought at top dollar, paid for through the nose for from a dealer - how many more clichés do you want in a sentence? Isn't it lovely? and it's the only one like this I've got.

There has to be a story behind it - I still remember my father coming in with one of these when I was five years old and giving it to me. This was a very rare event - Christmas and birthdays only and not always then. We were not poor, but then we did not have cash to throw around and my father spending 4/7d on one of these was a big deal. Hell I loved it. It was so SHINY and it had jewelled headlamps and a Venetian blind in the rear window and it was PINK. Cars were dark green, fawn or grey then. Nothing nearly as exotic as this had ever penetrated rural Cumberland in 1961.

Am I going to confess and say how much I paid for this? Am I xxxx!!!