Fiat 508CM

The Fiat 508CM was a light tactical vehicle that the Italian maker Fiat built for the Regio Esercito, the Italian royal army, and which that army used extensively in the Second World War. The letters CM mark the military version of the civil Fiat 508C Nuova Balilla 1100. It followed a Fiat 508C Coloniale made from 1937 to 1939, and was presented at Avezzano on 11 July 1938 with squarer lines and stronger suspension. It entered service that year with the army and the air force and stayed in production until 1945, with about 6,000 built, some hundreds of them for the German Wehrmacht after the armistice, and it was the most widespread reconnaissance and liaison car of the Italian commands. It is a four door, four seat torpedo on the 508C chassis with right hand drive and 6.00 by 16 tyres, powered by the Fiat 108C engine, a four cylinder petrol unit of 1,089 cubic centimetres giving 30 horsepower and a speed of 95 kilometres per hour. Variants include a light truck, a Coloniale for North and East Africa and Libya, and a closed Berlina FO built for the Eastern Front, of which 50 went to Russia in 1941.