Home » Fiat City Taxi, the Manzù concept that anticipated the future in 1968

Fiat City Taxi, the Manzù concept that anticipated the future in 1968

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TURIN – Fiat 127 will not be the only queen of the exhibition which will be hosted at the National Automobile Museum in Turin (MAUTO) until 5 September. Alongside six examples of the legendary car designed by Pio Manzoni, aka Manzù, son of the successful sculptor Giacomo (specifically two of the first series plus six versions: the Rustica, the Sport, the Top and the Panorama), visitors will be able to stop on another great work from the pen of the same designer: the Fiat City Taxi prototype on an 850 base, belonging to the historical collection of Heritage and usually exhibited in the multipurpose space Heritage HUB in Turin. It is an original project for non-scheduled city public transport that boasts numerous technological innovations oriented towards safety and functionality, so much so that it can be fully defined as a real “concept car”.

Suffice it to say that there are 15 new patents registered by Fiat to set up the 850 City Taxi. Although the prototype presented at the Turin Motor Show remains at the experimental stage, many of its innovative solutions, developed for a long time by the Fiat Style Center, will later be used on production cars. Even the lines, in particular those of the rear bonnet, will be taken up in the compact Fiat 126 from 1972, which first flanks and then replaces the glorious Fiat 500.

The project started from the mechanics of the 850: to facilitate the intensive city use, the “Idromatic” version was chosen, characterized by the presence of a torque converter around the hydraulic clutch to make driving in the city easier. It was not an automatic gearbox but a system that eliminated the clutch pedal leaving the four gears unchanged. The description used is “power assisted transmission” and the plate on the bonnet said “Idroconvert”.

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The dimensions are compact but the spaces are exploited to the maximum. More than for its height, the 850 City Taxi amazes for its asymmetries: on the left side there is a conventional door used only by the driver, while on the right side the passengers enter through an innovative long electrically operated sliding door. Inside, the rear sofa housed three passengers: if, in extraordinary cases, it was necessary to accommodate a fourth for short distances, an additional folding seat was placed next to that of the driver.

Also important are the innovations dedicated to safety, which will subsequently become standard in production cars: such as the articulated steering column to safeguard the driver in the event of a frontal impact, the padded dashboard in deformable material and the securing of luggage by means of a strap. But also the communication system with radiotelephone, which includes the microphone in the sun visor, is a forerunner of the current hands-free systems for mobile phones. Furthermore, the television positioned in the center of the dashboard can be considered the forerunner of modern infotainment system screens. Some functional solutions were taken up years later, such as the glazed tailgate on the hatchbacks, or the card pocket in the roof, still present today on MPV cars.

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