Fiat 508 Balilla

The Fiat 508 Balilla was a compact car designed and produced by Fiat from 1932 to 1937. It was effectively the replacement of the Fiat 509, although production of the earlier model had stopped in 1929. It had a three-speed gearbox, increased to four in 1934, seated four and had a top speed of about 80 km/h, and it sold for 10,800 lire. About 113,000 were produced. Leading Italian engineers of the day including Nebbia, Fessia and Tranquillo Zerbi developed it to bring some qualities of a high class car to a modestly priced vehicle, and it was unveiled on 12 April 1932 at a motor show on the Fiera Milano grounds. The first car had a front-mounted four-cylinder petrol side-valve engine of 995 cc with 20 hp. It was also assembled in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Germany by NSU-Fiat and France by SAFAF, later Simca-Fiat. Fiat insisted that the name Balilla honoured the 1746 Genoa boy-hero and not the fascist youth organisation.