Fiat 401

The Fiat 401 is an urban bus made by the Italian maker Fiat Bus from 1953. It started a new generation of buses with the 400 series, the new classification of the Fiat group's urban buses. Launched in 1953, it was a great technical advance: unlike its predecessors and the competition of the time, it was not built on a truck chassis but on a chassis designed specifically for bus and coach use, which made boarding much easier because the access was much lower. It was a big commercial success, and its legendary sturdiness and reliability kept it in service for more than 20 years, with many used vehicles exported to Africa. It had very effective ventilation and heating and was the first model to offer power steering and a Marelli-Fiat semi-automatic gearbox as standard, but kept the engine at the front beside the driver on the right, as Italian traffic rules of the time required. Bodies came from Fiat's CANSA plant and from Casaro, Viberti and Aerfer.