Category Archives: Driving in Italy

Revisione

26 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by in Driving in Italy, Italian bureaucracy, Liguria

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

,

For all the ways that life in Italy seems different, there is one thing that is absolutely familiar – vehicle inspection.  That’s kind of surprising, given how many layers of administration there usually are to the simplest of tasks in this bureaucratic nation.  But getting the scooter inspected proved to be very simple.

The first step, of course, was to stop in at our mechanic Simone’s shop so he could give my bike the once-over for any glaring deficiencies.  He felt everything was okay, but encouraged us to tell the examiner that he was our mechanic if there were a problem – we presume that would have eased whatever might have followed.

In the event, it wasn’t necessary as the scoots passed with flying colors.

They check all the same things here that they check in the U.S.: lights (luci), brakes (freni), suspension (sospensioni), play in the steering mechanism and the chassis (prova gioca and prova deriva), emissions test (analisi gas di scarico) and finally a visual inspection (ispezione visiva) and in pretty much the same ways: there’s the spinning doodad for testing brakes:

and the pokey thing that goes in the tail pipe:

So all in all, it turned out to be not terribly interesting in terms of being ‘different’ – but it’s always fun to visit any Italian office and jaw with the people there.  Here is Speedy discussing this and that with the very cheerful and helpful Francesca:

And wait – there are a few differences.  In Arizona we simply drive up to one of the Testing Stations (after first looking online to see how long the wait might be – always short where we live).  Here we had to call about a week ahead to make an appointment.  To our great satisfaction we didn’t have to wait at all; they were expecting us.

The testing stations in Arizona are rather large; they have to be to accommodate some of the giant trucks that come through.  It’s a tight squeeze for a car to get into the entrance of the Rapallo site (top photo), two 90-degree turns are required.  No 4 X 4’s here, please (although presumably there are other testing stations for all the trucks we see on the roads).

Here’s another difference: cost.  In Arizona we pay $27.75.  Emissions testing there is tied to auto registration: both have to be done every two years.  Everything but the actual emissions test itself can be done online.  It cost us €65.50 (about $85 given the present exchange rate) for the revisione of my scooter, which is also good for two years.

But all in all, it’s one of the simplest of bureaucratic tasks that we undertake here, and the people at the testing center (Francesca and Paolo) are kind and efficient. Here’s a strange fact of automotive life in Italy: you have to be a legal resident here to own a vehicle of any sort.  As a resident of another country you can own a house, but you can’t own a vehicle.  Isn’t that odd?

Taxi!

15 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in Driving in Italy, Health and health care, Italian bureaucracy, Italy, Medical care in Italy, Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

, ,

Quick!  Take me to the Pharmacy!

Photo courtesy of italyfromtheinside.com

An article in the English edition of ANSA describes a wildcat strike by taxi drivers in Rome.  They are unhappy because the Monti administration, in its package of reforms, wants to loosen requirements to become a cabby.  This is just one of many measures aimed at boosting Italy’s flagging economy and making it possible for young people to find work –  all of which are being offered in tandem with severe austerity measures.

Photo courtesy of tuscantraveller.com

Back in 2007 the Roman taxi drivers were angry, too.  At that time the city wanted to add 1,000 cabs to the stable.  Rome had, at that time, 3 cabs for every 1,000 residents, the fewest of any city in Europe, according to a Marketplace report.

Prime Minister Monti, photo courtesy of The Guardian

Another of the proposed Monti reforms calls for relaxing the regulations around opening a pharmacy.  As things are now it is almost impossible to open a new pharmacy.  A young person can go to school and become a pharmacist, but without family connections to an existing business, finding a position will be difficult (not impossible, but difficult).  But the entrepreneurial pharmacist who wants to open a new drugstore is just plain out of luck.  The number and opening hours of pharmacies are regulated by law according to about.com.  It is also true that if you want to get aspirin or vitamins you will have to go to a pharmacy where you will find them hideously packaged on foil covered cardboard.  Last time I forgot to bring aspirin from the States I paid € 6 for 30 aspirin.  Speedy says that often when viewing the painkiller section of a Walmart store and seeing 500 Iboprofen selling for $6.28, he thinks an Italian seeing the same shelf would need a cardiologist rather than some pills.  Until recently the only place you could buy prepared baby food was at a pharmacy.  Imagine!

While there is a lot wrong with the pharmacy system in Italy (and probably the taxi system as well), there is a lot right.  There is always at least one pharmacy open within shouting distance, and the pharmacists are highly trained, knowledgeable and able to help with minor medical emergencies, saving one a trip to the emergency room.  But the regulations against competition in pharmacies could be relaxed without reducing the requisite training for pharmacists – that would be good for consumers and for young pharmacists.

The larger problem, of which these two issues are representative, is that Italy is a country strangled by bureaucracy and regulations.  There is no place for young people to find work because all the trades and professions are so busy protecting their own interests that they are unwilling to be open, to expand or to share.  That’s bad for all concerned, it seems to me.  Educated young people live with their parents and fruitlessly hunt for jobs; the professions stagnate and suffer gross inefficiencies due to limited scope and size. Speedy reminded me that the current generation of Italians is called the NEETS (not in education, employment or training) generation (15 to 29 years-of-age), of which there are some 2 million.  These NEETS comprise 11.2 % of this age group in Italy compared to 3.6% in Germany, 3.5% in France, 1.7% in the UK, and but .5% in Spain.  All that talent going to waste!  Clearly, this is a socio-economic problem that will have long-lasting effects unless the new government, and the Italian people, can turn around their unique approach to social management.

To an American it seems ludicrous.  In the States it is relatively easy to start a business – all you need is a good idea and either money, or backers with money.  Granted, some 35% of new businesses will fail within the first two years, but at least one has the opportunity to try.  And if only 35% fail it means  that 65% succeed, giving income and occupation to more people and, because of the competition generated, giving better services and lower prices to society in general .

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out in the months ahead.  In the meantime, don’t get sick in Rome – it might be hard to find a cab to take you to the pharmacy.  And if you’re visiting Italy from the States, do bring your own aspirin.

New Math, Italian Style

05 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by in Driving in Italy, Italian habits and customs, Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

Some years ago speed limits came to the Italian Autostrada system, as they have to most major European highways (even most of the Autobahn!).  While this makes some people, the Captain amongst them, sad, it has proved not to be such a bad thing after all.  The limit on the Autostrada, unless otherwise noted, is 130 kmh, or 80.77 mph, which is not exactly crawling.

But leave it to Italy to monitor speed in a slightly different way.  Rather than waste endless fuel and manpower by putting police cruisers with radar and officers in chase vehicles on the roads, the Autostrada has installed a speed monitoring system called Tutor (because it’s supposed to teach you to slow down).  It doesn’t actually measure your speed at a given point, though.  What it does is measure how long it takes you to get from one Tutor camera to another, some distance down the road.  Stop for a cup of coffee between the two cameras and you can go as fast as you like while on the highway!  What a concept.  Of course if you don’t want to stop, then you have to drive at a speed that averages out to the limit or just slightly over.  But still, that leaves some room for testing the capabilities of your new Ferrari or blowing the cobwebs out of your original Fiat 500.

It’s all done through a sophisticated camera -> computer -> camera -> police computer system, which is explained (in English) on this web site.  If I understand it correctly. your car’s tags are photographed by camera 1, and stored in the server; they are then matched up with another photograph taken by camera 2, and the server figures out your average speed.  If it’s too high, you’ll receive a highly unpleasant piece of mail from the Road Police.

I’m making fun of this a little, but the system has proved to be effective. The Tutor brochure, thoughtfully provided by the Autostrada, has a compelling graph that shows a death rate in 1999 of 1.14 (per thousand? per km of total Autostrada? not noted on the graph, alas), which was reduced in 2009 to .32. That’s a handsome 72% decline.  Roads in general went from 1.38 deaths to .83 –  a not nearly so impressive 40% (but it’s all good).  In fairness it has to be said, too, that cars themselves are much safer now than in 1999.

As the above photo of stalled traffic on the A10 suggests, the Autostrada system gets a lot of use: 4 million people a day travel on the system; in 2008, 915 million vehicles used the roads.  Anyone who has ever driven on the Autostrada on any day other than Sunday will not be surprised to learn that trucks account for 19% of the vehicles and 24% of the kilometers traveled on the system (2008).  45% of the fatal accidents involve a truck.

Does it surprise you to hear that Italy has fewer road fatalities per 100,000 population (8.7) than the U.S. (12.3)?  Or, if you prefer, 12 fatalities per 100,000 vehicles in Italy compared to 15 per 100,000 in the U.S. It actually didn’t surprise me.  After living and driving in both countries I will take crazy Italian drivers over crazy U.S. drivers any day.  Italians drive fast, often, but they drive well, and while they may seem aggressive at times, it is usually a sporting sort of aggression (‘Let’s race! Isn’t this fun?’) rather than an angry aggression (‘Get out of my lane! I hate you!’).

What I have noticed more than anything here in Italy is a shared concern for safety; if someone stops on the side of the road he will follow the rules that require putting on a reflective vest and setting up a reflective warning triangle.  If there is damage on the road a warning sign is quickly put up.  One time the Captain and I drove back from Ikea with an oversize load sticking out the back of our car – we didn’t flag it correctly, and another motorist had something to say about that.  We snuck home with our tails between our legs (we didn’t know the rule at that time).  There is a sense of cooperation in road matters that I never feel in the U.S.  Here we have not ‘my’ lane and ‘your’ lane – rather we have ‘our’ road, and if one of us needs a bit of the other’s lane, well, that’s okay.  I’ll move over for you happily without getting all territorial about it.  I think in the U.S. we’re a bit more protective of ‘our’ space – maybe because we have so much more of it and can afford to be.

And speaking of sporting… the Autostrada, in its philosophy of full disclosure, wants you to know where the Tutor cameras are.  Warning signs alert you when you pass one.  And if you want to plan your coffee breaks to maximize your speed thrills on your journey, check out this site for a map of Tutor cameras before you leave home.

Buon viaggio!

Tutor map: http://www.autostrade.it/en/assistenza-al-traffico/tutor.html?initPosAra=3_4

Vanity, vanity

09 Thursday Dec 2010

Posted by in Driving in Italy, Driving in the U.S., Uncategorized

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

,

Dear Mr. Berlusconi,

It has come to our attention that Italy, like the United States, is in dire financial straits.  Austerity budgets, tax increases, benefit reductions – these are the cures being tossed at this world-wide epidemic (except in the U.S., where we are extending tax cuts and increasing spending… but that’s a topic for another day).

Mr. Berlusconi, you are missing a grand opportunity for raising funds.  It is easy to do – in fact, it is already being done in the U.S., Canada and many other countries.  We can’t imagine why, in these troubled economic times, the EU has not embraced the Vanity Plate for automobiles.

What is it, you ask?  It is a personalized license plate for your vehicle.  Yours, for instance, might simply say BERLU – or perhaps PRM MIN, or maybe even LOTHRIO… anything that’s not already taken and is not obscene is up for grabs.

Here in North America we first issued license plates in 1903 (Massachusetts and Ontario).  They didn’t look anything like they do now – they were made of leather, rubber, iron and porcelain.  By 1920 the familiar embossed metal plates had arrived, and in 1956 the size of license plates was standardized.

The first personalized American plate was issued in Pennyslvania way back in 1931.  (I haven’t been able to find out what it said.)  For years and years each state had its own color scheme for license plates with raised numbers in a contrasting color – New York was orange, Vermont was green, Arizona was a sort of maroon brown.  All that changed over the years. Now there are any number of different types of plates available, depending on your State.

Mr. Berlusconi, did you know that in the U.S. and Canada there are 9.7 million vehicles with personalized plates?  3.87% of cars in America proudly carry a personalized message and each one of those plates cost money, money that went into the coffers of the issuing State!

And it’s not just the States that benefit.  Many States offer a personalized plate that supports a belief, a school, a sports team.  Here in Arizona we have a choice of 38 plates touting anything from cancer awareness, to the environment to Arizona State University.  Once you’ve chosen your type of plate, you can choose the letters and/or numbers you want on it.  Prices vary from state to state.  In Arizona it costs $25 to apply for a vanity plate, and $25 a year to keep it.  If you have chosen a plate that supports a charity, a hefty portion of the annual fee will go to the charity (here it’s typically $17 of each $25 renewal).

Think of it!  If you could sell, say, 1,000,000 plates a year in Italy, and you charged E 50 a year, that would be 50,000,000 a year.  Granted, it won’t solve Italy’s financial crisis, but it would help.

There’s another benefit Mr. Berlusconi – it’s much easier to remember a plate that spells out a word, even in an abbreviated form.  This would be helpful for all those times you have to write your plate number on a form, which seems to be about once a week in Italy.  How much simpler to remember BERLU than, say 135 MIN.  Also helpful if you need to report a hit and run to the police.

Are you thinking it might be hard to come up with a good idea for a plate?  Well, there are a lot of ways to approach it.  Some people opt for the simple name or initials plate:

Others like to come up with clever sayings to tell other motorists something about themselves – a sort of highway tweet:

Born to fight? Tanned from outside battles?

Then there are the ones that mean something to the owners, but are, perhaps, a bit mystifying to readers:

Multiple personalities, perhaps?

Proud scholar?


Note that the one above is a special plate for a veteran.  Does it mean Corporal Tom?  Or perhaps it belongs to someone who did code work?

Many is the car owner who is proud of his car and wants you to know it:

This is on a Mini Cooper S… and perhaps it combines with another favorite vanity plate, the place name.

Plates are a pretty inexpensive way to advertise, and they reach a wide audience:

Is that advertising Zinfandel?  Or something else?

The University of Arizona has a vibrant music department – could this be a proud member of the orchestra?  Or simply someone who likes good seats at concerts?


Sports themes come up a lot on the back of cars:

Other people just want you to know where they fit in the family:

Mr. Prime Minister, you could make a great public relations gesture and give the Pope the Papa 1 plate, free of charge.

I hope, you’ll consider this fund-raising suggestion, Mr. Berlusconi; surely vanity plates would be a hit in Italy. And if none of the above gives you ideas for your own plate, you can check this link to find hundreds of suggestions.

Sincerely,
Farfalle1 (who will apply for the Farfal1 plate as soon as they’re available)

Polizia Stradale

21 Friday May 2010

Posted by in Driving in Italy, Italian habits and customs, Law and order, Uncategorized

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

, , ,

While we’re on the subject of police, which we were very briefly in April, it seems the Italian police are making a huge public relations effort just now.  Our guest and I made a day trip to Genova last week, and among the many delights that city offers we stumbled upon a Road Safety Exhibition at the seaside near the Palazzo San Giorgio.  The Carabinieri and the Polizia  Stradale were there in numbers, including this gentlemen entertaining a group of youngsters.  Behind the auto’s open hatch is a radar speed gun which can be used either from a stationary position or from a moving police car.  Bah!  The autostradas now have a nasty thing called Tutor, which is a fixed speed gun mounted to various bridges, etc.  But this little item below is really mean – it can get you coming or going.

Part of road safety, alas, is the ambulance service.  Finally the young fellow on the right below was able to answer our confusion about all the different colored Crosses – Croce Rossa, Croce Bianca, Croce Verde (Red, White, Green)- all of which seem to operate ambulance services in and around Rapallo.  The Red Cross is affiliated with the International Red Cross and is a professional outfit; some of the participants are paid.  The Croce Verde and Croce Biancha instead are all-volunteer organizations.  Just to make things more complicated, there is also a Croce Rosa (Pink Cross), also volunteer; I don’t believe they operate in our area (please tell me if you know otherwise!).  A few years back I needed a quick trip to a hospital.  I can’t tell you which color cross came to cart me off, but whoever they were, they were fantastic.

Just a cotton-pickin’ minute…  Why are the Carabiniere on BMW’s?  Can’t Ducati or Bimota or Cagiva or Moto Guzzi make a good enough cycle for our national police??

Only by the sea will you find fast floating rescue vehicles like the jet ski below, this one under the auspices of the Fire Department. Personally I never think of boats catching fire, but evidently they do.  There were 42 serious fires/explosions on boats in 2006, just in the U.K!

This was my favorite exhibit, though.  It’s another fire department truck that is also a boat!  Wouldn’t that be fun?  (I want one, after I get my car that turns into an airplane…).  When the baby below blew her horn we jumped out of our skins – think of standing inside a foghorn and you’ll have the general idea.

We arrived at the Expo at about 12:30 p.m., which by sacred decree is part of Italy’s lunch hours, so there were not many people visiting the Expo.  That was good for us, because we got to speak with the people in the booths.  It’s great to see the Police of all stripes making an effort to educate and to be friendly and helpful.  Even if they do have those @#$! speed guns.

Rapallo Ha Ha

22 Thursday Apr 2010

Posted by in Driving in Italy, Italian festas, Italian holidays, Italy, Pulcinella Awards, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

If you wanted to know where the 14th annual  Cartoons on the Bay Festival in Rapallo was last weekend, all you had to do was follow the sea of yellow balloons that bobbed along the Lungomare, firmly held by young hands.  When I hear the word ‘cartoon’ I think of newspapers, The New Yorker and Gary Larson.  But of course I live in the papery past.  Nowadays cartoons are all about TV shows, videos and animated films.  The Festival’s subtitle should have made it obvious: International Festival of Televised and Cross-Media Animation.

The festival is, perhaps, the Academy Awards of animated television here in Italy, with Pulcinella Awards given in various categories, including TV Series for Preschool, for Kids, for the Tween generation and Young Adults; Educational and Social Products; TV Series Pilot; and Interactive Animation.  To my absolute delight, though, the shows the children evidently found most appealing were the ones that featured real, living people, albeit some of them disguised as giant mice.

or Star Wars Characters

or chickens

or one of my favorites, Batman!

I want the job where you get to dress up in a silly outfit and play with children!

One end of the Lungomare was given over to the Cartoon Village, a series of cheerful white temporary buildings that housed various displays, including several by sponsors.  (RAI, the state-run television, was the main sponsor of the event.  Other sponsors included Kinder Sorpresa (my favorite because they were the only ones to give me something – a white chocolate egg with a prize inside) and Monwatch, a clever and inexpensive water-proof item that can be slipped in and out of plastic watchbands of many colors.)  Here’s a photo of a display of Kinder Sorpresa prizes from the 1970’s.

The largest tent held several hundred people, most of whom happened  to be screaming youngsters at the time I dropped in.  They were excited about the stars of a famous TV show:

The din was extraordinary.  And though I really enjoyed watching the dancing, the crush of people and the decibels chased me out after about five minutes.

After Music Gate, a visit with the Police, who were present in great numbers, was positively calming.  Behind the young lad trying out a fast cycle below is the large bus which is used for education – it houses a bunch of computers that teach highway safety.  In addition, in a neighboring kiosk a policeman was giving a PowerPoint display on safety to a rapt group of older people – probably the grandparents of all the kids screaming in the tent.

Without a doubt, though, my favorite part of the Cartoon festival had nothing to do with cartoons and everything to do with fast cars.  I have never seen a cruiser like this in the U.S. (or such a spiffy police uniform, for that matter).


It’s a Lamborghini Gallardo capable of speeds up to over 200 mph. It lives in Rome and is driven by either the handsome gent standing next to it, or his partner, who was nearby. They sometimes use it to apprehend speeders on the Autostrada, but frequently it is put to a far better use: transporting transplant organs – hearts, kidneys, corneas and so forth. I asked how much of that went on and the policeman said sometimes they do as many as four in a day, sometimes none.

It was a grand festival, and it tied Rapallo up in knots for days.  There was a big bike race on the Saturday, called Cartoons on the Bike.  My sources tell me that some of the most important ciclisti of Italy participated.  In the weeks leading up to the race some of the main streets around Rapallo were re-surfaced, which led to horrible traffic snags.  But as our friend G said, the race is over, but we get to keep the improved roads. The link above to the bike race includes a great many fun pictures of the event, which included children as well as adults and took place between Rapallo and Portofino, on one of the loveliest and most famous stretches of road in the country.

Now… can you guess which person in the photo below is me??!

Take My Car – Please! or… Let’s Buy a Car, Part 2

19 Saturday Dec 2009

Posted by in Driving in Italy, Driving in the U.S., Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

,

M needed a new car, and she needed one soon.  An unfortunate woman suffering from a diabetic induced moment of attention deficit had run into the side of M’s car, totaling it.  The woman had driven on, oblivious to the accident and the damage she had caused.  It sounds impossible, but that’s what happened.  Lucikily neither M nor the woman was hurt, and within an hour the police had found the ill woman and gotten her off the highway, but it was too late for M, or, more specifically, it was too late for M’s 15-year old Toyota.  The old girl was dead.

M depends upon an auto for her work; fortunately her insurance company paid for a rental car.  But they were growing restive; it had been a week or two… when was M going to buy a new car?  In a sort of twisted, modern Catch-22 M was too busy working to go car-shopping, but had to go car shopping if she wished to continue working.  What to do?

As it happened she was visiting another friend in Vermont for a rare mid-week holiday, and so was I.  The Vermont friend, H, and her husband had just bought a new Honda, the 4th or 5th they’d purchased from the same dealer, whom they hold in extremely high regard.  Nothing would do but that M should look for a new car at that dealer.

So she did.  The Honda dealer was a nice young chap, and he had a car that would suit M, and he was willing to deal.  He’d met his match in M, I think.

They wheeled and dealed (oh ha ha); M had the high ground because she has always driven Toyotas and was perfectly willing to go back where she lives and buy a Toyota there.  Poor Dealer!  He could see his sale slipping away, in spite of the fact that M had enjoyed her test drive (yes, she got to have a test drive, in the actual car and on real roads.  Lucky M).

“Take the car home for the rest of the day and tonight,” he said.  I couldn’t believe my ears.  What??  Take the car home??!  But that is what he really said.  This was on a Thursday. “Well, alright,” replied M, “but you understand, if I buy this car I have to be able to drive it out of here tomorrow all registered, insured and with a loan in place, a favorable loan.”  “No problem, no problem,” Dealer answered.

So she did.  She took the car and she and I drove the 15 or 20 miles back to H’s house.  M had said she’d return it the next morning, but we slept late and got busy doing other things.  Did the police come looking for us?  They did not.  Instead we were warmly welcomed when we returned to Dealer in the early afternoon (there was, perhaps, just a touch of relief in his eyes when he saw us stroll in).

The end of the story is that M drove away a few hours later in what was now her car, Dealer having also arranged for the return of her rental car at a nearby branch of the rental agency.  Well, okay, it turned out there were a few snags in the weeks that followed, having to do with buying a car in one state and living in another, but Dealer did what he had to do to fix them.

Maybe it has something to do with the economy, but it’s more than that: American car dealers seem much more eager to sell cars than their Italian counterparts, and will do, it would seem, just about anything to succeed.  Including letting someone test-borrow the car for 24 hours.  I just can’t imagine that happening in Liguria, where, if you are very good the dealer will do you an enormous favor and sell you a car.

Let’s Buy a Car!!

14 Monday Dec 2009

Posted by in Driving in Italy, Italian habits and customs, Italy

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Photo from NissanBlog - thanks!

A few years ago the Captain and I were shopping for an automobile in Italy.  We had bought an aged Peugeout 106 when we first immigrated, and had pretty well beaten it up. We were aching for something that seemed a little more stylish and had a lot more speed.  The Captain has always driven a sports car; it’s one of his Rules.  Being a tall person, I’ve never been in love with squat little two-seaters.  I find them hard to get in and out of, and once in, it’s not always easy to see what’s going on outside your cozy little cockpit.

We looked at every dealer we could find in Chiavari; we looked at Fiats, we looked at Peugeouts, you name it, we looked at it.  Finally we looked at the Nissan Micra and I lost my heart.  This lovely car has the rounded shape I have always defined as ‘cute,’  perhaps even ‘darling,’ certainly ‘irresistable.’  In addition it had some nifty features – a front passenger seat that lifted up for sneaky hidden storage, a key that magically opened the door without having to be inserted in the lock.  It was a dream.  AND, the Captain was willing to compromise on the usual sports car because we sometimes have guests in Italy, and without an unsightly roof rack there is no way to transport either guests or their luggage in a two-seater.

When I say we ‘saw’ all these cars, I am really attacking the issue at its heart.  We saw them; we did not drive them.  We were not invited to drive them.  The Peugeot dealer took us out for a spin, but he insisted on driving.  This concept of look-but-don’t-test-drive was quite foreign to us.  On the other hand, we could see the logic of it given the narrowness of the roads and the nuttiness of some of the people who are navigating them. Still, it left us feeling a bit as if we were buying a pig in a poke.

Nonetheless, a Micra it was to be.  Only problem was, we wanted one right away as we had an actual guest arriving, and there was a road-trip planned, and the old Peugeot 106 was behaving erratically. The Chiavari dealer could not oblige.  The Captain called a dealer he knew in Piemonte who said he could have one for us the next day and the deal was struck over the phone.

Photo courtesy of channel4.com

Ten minutes after he hung up the phone a friend called to inform us that after making us wait for acouple of years, he had decided that yes, he wanted to sell us hisMini Cooper S.  Synchronicity at its worst!

My dream car went the way of all dreams, evaporating in the mist. The Piemonte dealer was gracious and understanding (who would want a Micra if he could have a Mini? that was his reasoning), and the road trip was made in the almost-new Mini.  Getting the darn thing registered in Italy was an amazing and complicated feat, involving a trip to Monaco which had issued the plates (which weren’t really plates, but stickers)… but that’s a story for another day.

Also for another day is the comparison of our car-buying experience with the experience I shared with my friend M several weeks ago as she shopped for a new car in the U.S…. stay tuned.

Cinquecento

01 Sunday Nov 2009

Posted by in Driving in Italy, Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Most countries, it seems, used to have an automobile that in some way expressed the national character: the Germans had the uber-efficient BMWs and the VW Beetle, the Brits had the Mini Cooper (much favored in rally driving and now newly reborn as a BMW), the French had the quirky Deux Cheveaux (nicknamed The Ugly Duckling), Americans had a bunch of high performance ‘muscle cars’ (GTO’s, Chargers) and their affiliates, the ‘pony cars’ (Mustangs, etc.).  Here in Italy we had the Fiat Cinquecento (cinquecento means ‘500’).

Fiat has sometimes been accused, affectionately I hope, of being an acronym for Fix It Again Tony.  Back in the day this was not unfair, in fact, and the early Cinquecentos did require a certain amount of tuning and repair. But most cars did.  The Cinquecento was originally made in Torino at the huge Fiat motorworks from 1957 to 1975 (I like the number inversion of the dates, don’t you?).  It quickly became ubiquitous in post-war Italy; it was a relatively inexpensive way for the suddenly growing and more urban middle-class to get around. In 2007, fifty years after the first Cinquecento was made, Fiat reintroduced the model, and in 2008 Fiat/Abarth brought out a model with 135 hp, up from the 13 hp (!) of the original version.

What many of these cars have in common, muscle cars excepted, is that they’re all cute.  I realize cuteness is probably not one of the main concerns of car designers, but dang, the Beetle, the Mini, the Deux Cheveaux and, especially, the Cinquecento are all as cute as can be.  Take a look:

Volkswagen_Beetle_

VW Beetle

Deux Chevaux2

Deux Cheveaux, photo from pollyvousfrancais.blogspot.com

minis old and new

Minis, new and old, photo from the MiniCooper News

And where is the Cinquecento, you ask? Well, last weekend about fifty of them were in Rapallo for the 15th annual gathering of  Cinquecentos under the auspices of Rapallo’s  Motoclub A. Olivari.  I decided to go have a look.

I didn’t have to go far; just around the corner from our house I found a couple of cars parked, the owners undoubtedly enjoying a mid-day meal at either Ristorante Paolin or Trattoria Rosa, San Maurizio’s justifiably famous eateries.  It kind of looks like the red one is plugged into the house, doesn’t it?  It’s not.

fiats

The main event was in the center of town near the port.  One of the best cars there, I thought, was the Cinquecento’s predecessor, the  Fiat Topolino, or ‘little mouse’, which dates from 1950.  It made me think of the phrase ‘saloon car’ for some reason.  The Captain, who does not think of ‘saloon car’ when he sees the Topolino, tells me that backward opening doors like this are called ‘suicide doors’ – you can imagine why.

fiats (16)
fiats (17)
What struck me is the time, effort, and yes, love that the owners pour into their Cinquecentos.  The paint jobs, the interiors, the engines (I’m guessing about the engines) were all exquisite.  Here are a few shots of the some of the cars.  There is a small album here where you will find about fifteen more photos if you’re interested (slide show recommended, F11 for full screen).

fiats (8)

Fancy paint job

The photo above gives a good idea of how small these cars are. Those are ordinary-sized people in the background, not basketball players. Once people are in a Cinquecento, though, they look like giants.

fiats (22)

Call me a cab!

fiats (24)

Strange wiper arrangement

When I originally saw the car below I thought, ‘Aha!  I know what under sign this owner was born.’  But no.  The Scorpion is the logo for Abarth. Abarth was an Italian racing car maker founded in 1949, which later branched out into tuning kits for for road vehicles, mainly Fiats.  In 1971 Fiat bought Abarth. Many of these period  Cinquecentos were sporting Abarth engine upgrades (the engine, by the way, is at the rear of the car).

fiats (21)

It was all too exhausting for some of the participants.  The day was perfect, the sun was warm, and I just have to imagine that someone had finished a fine luncheon not too long before I happened along.

fiats (5)

The new Cinquecento is a very cute car too, in the roundy way of so many of the old-timey cars.  I wouldn’t mind having one; we don’t need a car here, but perhaps someday in the States, if the Chrysler-Fiat marriage can arrange it, you will see this in our garage:

fiats (33)