Fiat 509a Saloon

The bodywork of this Fiat, covered with artificial leather, is called a Weymann body and is designed to make the car lighter, allowing the use of a 900 cc four cylinder engine.

A few years earlier such a small engine would have been unthinkable in a four-seater sedan because these cars were too heavy. The Fiat 509, the marque’s first mass produced car, was welcomed with open arms in 1925, and some 90,000 were produced until 1929. The car was fully equipped and neatly finished yet inexpensive. It was also the first car that could be bought on credit, thus opening the market to less wealthy motorists. In England the car cost 195 pounds sterling, and 240 pounds sterling with Weymann bodywork. But the small Fiat was also in vogue among the elite. The Italian heir to the throne, Umberto II, owned two 509s and his sister Giovanna had one, as did the Queen of Yugoslavia. The car featured in the Belgian comic strip, Guust Flater (aka Gaston Lagaffe). Guust drove a 509 taxi.