Pass driving with common sense
10/12/2013
Many of today's motorists can no longer imagine this. It wasn't speed limits, slow-moving queues of cars or the threat of speed cameras that forced drivers to slow down in the past. It was often not even the lack of engine power, no, it was common sense. In the Automobil Revue of June 25 , 1947, for example, the testers wrote: "The stability of the small engine is downright astonishing, and as experience has shown, the(Fiat) Topolino can be driven on all our mountain passes without stopping and without the coolant boiling - assuming, of course, a sensible driving style."
What a "sensible driving style" meant can be seen in the statements of Dr. Ing. Rudolf Meyer, who tested a Fiat 500C (Topolino) for the young magazine "Das Auto" (later Auto Motor und Sport) in 1949: "At Klausen, for example, the situation was such that the "ohv" machine could be driven at 30 to 40 km/h in third gear until 'Fruttberg' with a short interruption on a 'stair climb' before the 'Bergli' (coming from Linthal), where it had to be downshifted to second gear ..."
Average speeds of 30 km/h were considered brisk for such a small car as the Topolino back then and of course the driver had to keep a constant eye on the coolant thermometer and use common sense.
We will soon be publishing a detailed report on the Fiat 500C.
