Why do Fiats rust so badly?
Fiat is the GM of Europe, and they make a wide range of cars. The 206 Dinos and the V-6 130s don t rust as badly as the 850s because they are very expensive and made more carefully. The same can be said for Cadillacs not rusting as much as Geo Prisms. Italian carmakers of the 60s and 70s didn t pay much attention to parts of the car that weren t going to be seen by the customer, such as the inside of rocker panels. I have seen inside a 1963 Ferrari s rocker panels, and they were built of raw, unpainted, unprotected sheet metal. And of course, they rusted to bits just like our Fiats. Often, Fiat never painted parts of the body hidden from view. An example for you 850 Spider folks: there is a panel that can be unbolted that is right in front of the windshield. It s the piece that has the wiper arm drives and the windshield washer nozzle coming through it. You concours people spend a lot of time carefully waxing the paint around all these protrusions to make it bright and beautiful and pr
