Renfe Class 443

The Renfe Class 443, nicknamed Platanito (little banana) for its yellow livery, was a four-car tilting train delivered in 1976 and built by the Spanish firm CAF together with Fiat as a prototype similar to the Italian ETR 401. It grew out of an agreement that Fiat and the Spanish national railway Renfe signed in 1972 to cooperate on tilting-train development, whose first fruit was the fitting of active tilting suspension to a Renfe Class 432 electric multiple unit in September 1972. The Class 443 had a commercial top speed of 180 km/h and set a then Spanish speed record of 206 km/h on 6 May 1987. It remained a unique specimen because Renfe favoured the entirely domestic Talgo Pendular, a passive tilting train introduced in 1980. After revenue service in 1979 to 1982 it was used for charter and test runs. The Archivo Histórico Ferroviario in Madrid catalogues a photograph of unit 443-001 as an electric railcar built by CAF under licence from Fiat.