Fiat Buyer's Guide

Fiat at auction is mostly the 500: five of our seven tracked sales, from £700 to £23,625, median £4,200. The spread separates honest classic Nuova 500s from the exceptional restorations and hot derivatives at the top. Around them sit two reminders that Fiat built proper enthusiast machinery: a Dino at £51,750 and an X1/9 at £4,687.

The story, briefly

The 1957 Nuova 500 motorised Italy the way the Beetle motorised Germany, and its survivors are now urban classics with universal parts support. The Dino coupés and spiders of the late sixties carried a genuine Ferrari-built V6; the Bertone-styled X1/9 of 1972 offered mid-engined handling at hatchback money and rusted accordingly.

Which Fiat, for what money

£2,500 to £5,000 buys a sound classic 500 around our median; the £23,625 top result shows what the best examples now command. The Dino trades in sports-car territory on its engine alone and remains cheaper than anything Ferrari-badged with the same character. X1/9s under £5,000 are among the last affordable mid-engined classics, when the structure survives.

What goes wrong

Rust everywhere on everything: 500 floors and sills, X1/9 sills and targa structure (the critical inspection), Dino everything. Mechanical parts for the 500 cost pennies and fit in a shoebox; Dino engine work is Ferrari-specialist work at matching rates. None of these cars punishes the mechanically curious; all of them punish the welding-averse.

Our view

A £3,000 to £5,000 classic 500 is city-sized classic ownership with running costs to match its footprint, and the club scene makes parts a non-issue. The X1/9 is the sleeper: buy the best structure available and enjoy handling nothing else at the price offers. The Dino is the one to stretch for if the engine history is documented.