It’s a real treat to run into a car that I’d utterly forgotten about. When I was scrolling down at the Cohort, and this orange coupe appeared, I did a double take: Wait a minute…what is this again? it looks so familiar, but I couldn’t place instantly, although the Fiat wheels were of course a give-away. This was shot and posted by William Rubano, who did not identify it in his posting.
It’s a Fiat 125S coupe by Vignale, and if you’ve never seen on before, there’s a reason: only some 100 were built Vignale, and it was penned by Alfredo Vignale himself, as he rather fancied a handsome coupe for his driving pleasure. And he got it, along with 99 other folks willing to pay more than the price of an XK-E for a pedestrian Fiat sedan in a finely tailored Italian suit.
It’s a certainly a handsome hand-tailored suit, but a derivative one. I’ll let you list all the other Italian coupes thta share various design aspects. Well, that’s hardly a put-down, as it was the style of the day (1969 or so).
This shot of the interior is from the web, but I added it to show that the money spent on a coach-built Italian car was generally well-spent, in terms of the interior as well as the exterior. A very attractive place to spend a day driving through the hills of Tuscany, or wherever. The DOHC 100hp 1.6 L four was willing, and the slick five-speed transmission was able.
The headlights do a Miura-esque tilt when called into action. Admittedly, the view from the front with the lights up is not the most flattering until ones eyes work their way back a bit.
In addition to various Italians, it also calls to mind the 1969 Audi 100S Coupe.
It’s not exactly brilliant or the best of the genre, but there’s quite a lot to like too. With the headlights down, its front end rather evokes the Fiat 850 Spider.
In any case, you won’t likely see yourself coming.