The April 1983 issue of Road & Track was notable for two things. The first was a famous April Fool’s Test of a sedan chair, of all things. This one is utterly hilarious, and one can only wonder at the staffers who had to drag the thing around (this was a two-person, as opposed to four-person effort). The crew at the magazine actually went and built this thing themselves, even going so far as to wallpaper the interior. The amount of laughter involved must have been extreme.
The second was the withdrawal of Fiat from the US marketplace. In today’s world, in which an ever-increasing number of people see automobiles as just another appliance, a dishwasher on wheels, and most cars are pretty much the same, it’s difficult to imagine that a maker had to abandon a market because their cars simply weren’t to the taste of people living in that country. But Fiat, whose cars work everywhere else, simply couldn’t compete (and quality also had a lot to do with it–this was a time when not all cars were as bulletproof as they are today).
In one sense, reading about Fiat leaving the US market saddened me, but in another, it was a sign that automotive things were better back then in other ways. People knew the difference between cars and voted with their feet. Nowadays, even Formula One is aimed at the social media generation. Most of the new fans know drivers and know about strategy… but if you ask them whether they like cars, they will say no. A sad state of affairs.
Anyway, Fiat as a company did return eventually, with Alfa Romeo, but Fiat as a brand took a little longer.
And the Salon? Glad you asked. It was a little AC 16/90 sports car that looked ancient but had performance that would scare some people even today.
Gustavo Bondoni’s latest novel is a dark historical fantasy entitled The Swords of Rasna, in which the Etruscan armies attempt to hold the Roman legions at bay… by any means necessary. You can check it out here.