In the fight against rust - the Fiat Atlantic test
03/23/2014
40 years ago, Fiat announced victory against the car's greatest enemy, rust. Full-page advertisements explained how Fiat vehicles were now protected ex works against the red plague.
Cavity treatment, multi-layer paint, electronic checks on paint quality, the use of specially durable epoxy paint for particularly vulnerable parts, underbody protection with plastic inserts and polyvinyl underbody treatment were the means announced to provide a two-year anti-rust guarantee.
To test the effectiveness of the measures, the Fiat people devised the Atlantic test. Two specially prepared Fiat 128 bodies were placed on a rock in the Atlantic Ocean and then exposed to the raging salt water for 30 days. This was more salt than most cars would see in many years.
And the result was also happily announced. The car that had been rust-protected using the new process showed virtually no signs of rust.
What the other car looked like, however, was not mentioned in the advertisement, and this would have been the Fiat 128 that Fiat customers had bought as a new car just a few months earlier.
Of course, we don't want to withhold the entire advertisement from 1974 from our readers:
