To broaden the scope a little, and to take full advantage of your faithful scribe’s language abilities, we’re going to start an occasional feature looking at listings abroad. We’ll try to restrain ourselves to cars that can legally be brought into any state or province, although you’ll have to ask yourself whether you’d honestly want to do so! And the first car that will incite us to pose that question is a rather unusual car, the product of Italians building foreign cars under license (which was, and kind of is, more common than you might have thought). Check out this 1984 Alfa Romeo Arna, for sale for €1200 (about $1655) in Cassano Magnago, Varese, Italy.
Posts Tagged ‘hatch’
Going Abroad – 1984 Alfa Romeo Arna
March 21, 2014First Word, Three Syllables: 1988 Daihatsu Charade
February 24, 2014Some cars that came to the American market were obvious failures. Look at early Toyotas and Nissans, for example, or the Renault 4CV. More recently, some of the badge-engineered GM frenemies like Isuzu and Saab were also not destined for success – their core customer base preferred the type of car they were already making, while any new conquests would rather stick to the original version of the car, with the benefit of the massive GM distribution channel making purchasing and service more straightforward. The Daihatsu Charade was not quite so obvious – while it was somewhat low on power by American standards, it was recognized for being nice to drive and well built, before that was a given for Japanese cars. Check out this 1988 Daihatsu Charade CLS for sale for $2750 in American Canyon, CA.
Not a Bear – 1993 Fiat Panda
February 21, 2014Built from 1980 to 2003, the Fiat Panda was conceived as a sort of modern Citroen 2CV. While it was not as innovative as the 2CV, it was still a fairly interesting car, and sold in various permutations including a ragtop, van, electric, and 4-wheel-drive, beating Subaru to the punch in the thriving 4wd city car segment. It was built with a number of Fiat legacy engines, donated by the 126, 850, and later the Uno, with which it shared the engines from Fiat’s FIRE series. The car’s designer was Giorgetto Giugiaro – yes, he of the Alfa Romeo 2600 sprint, Giulia GT, and Hyundai Excel. You can find this 1993 Fiat Panda for sale for $3500 in Downey, CA.


