With a body designed and built by Bertone, the Fiat 850 Spider is a handsome looking car, and for a vehicle that in the USA had an engine capacity of 817cc, it was still capable of hitting 90mph. This 1972 Fiat 850 Spider is a nice example that is claimed to have covered 37,000 miles and is now looking for a new home. You will find it listed for sale here on eBay. Located in Red Bank, New Jersey, it is offered for sale with a clear title. The owner has set an opening bid of $13,000 for the little Fiat, although there is also a BIN option of $13,900.
The little Fiat is complete, and it does appear to be in rather nice condition. The paint and panels look good, and there are no signs of the rust that plagued so many of these little Fiats. The soft-top looks quite good, although it is a bit stretched, and the factory alloy wheels also look good.
The interior on this 850 is in good condition, but it does feature one aftermarket component that I think looks quite good. The dash is not original, and the timber-work has been fabricated and finished by the owner. You would have to inspect it in person to confirm this, but judging by the photo, it looks like a really nice, and quite professional, job. The seats also feature deeper sculpting than on a standard 850 Spider.
We don’t get any photos of the engine, but what we know is that the little 817cc engine runs well. One interesting fact about the 850 is that its name was slightly misleading in the USA. In order to avoid having to comply with the stringent US emissions regulations, engine capacity on US cars was reduced from 843cc to 817cc. This brought the engine down to just under 50ci capacity, and emissions regulations were only imposed on vehicles with a capacity of 50ci and above. Pretty clever thinking. Engine compression on these engines was then raised so that the car could recover the power lost from the capacity reduction, but it then became necessary for the car to run on premium fuel.
This Fiat 850 Spider is a nice little car that seems to be in really good condition. Although build numbers on these were pretty respectable, many cars succumbed to major rust issues, making good examples a bit of a rarity today. This one does appear to be both solid, and in very nice condition. It is open to debate whether the custom dash adds to the value, or detracts from it. When these do come onto the market, which isn’t very often, they usually command prices of between $10,000 and $19,000. If this car is as good as it looks, even allowing for the dash, it still seems to represent a pretty decent buy.
Looks like a really nice and well cared for example. Are they really selling for north of ten thousand dollars?
Is that a Crosley buried under the boxes next to it?
Crosley? Good question but it looks more like some kind of a kit car, or from what I can see of the front fenders and hood it might be a Singer. A later one than the one listed previous to this.
Greetings All,
Have owned one of these.
They usually suffer from tin worm.
This one looks very good, though I’m not sure I’d be willing to pay much North of $10K, mainly because they do rust more than the average car.
You will start to lose different electrical accessories when the metal still looks good with paint or whatever else it might be covered, but alas it won’t due to corrosion ceasing its negative ground job.
A very fun car. Most will drive better when you anticipate things to accomadate the sub-1 liter engine.
No underside or engine pictures don’t help the ambitious pricing. If you want the top dollar, do a little work with photos. Underside I can almost understand, but it’s a Fiat. No engine pics, that is just laziness.
If fuel tank job was that easy, it would be done. It’s a Fiat, guessing rust, likely at the feedtube.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these that wasn’t totally rusted out, even 40+ years ago – in the Northeast they dissolved practically before your eyes!
Thought the later 850s had the 903 engine…… crewed on a team that raced one of these. Tough to compete against legions of bugeyes and early midgets….
Some years of 850 Spider had wood veneer dash. Worst is that 850’s can look that good until the floors let go and the seats hit the pavement. Happened when fairly new, which is why Fiat was forced to give Cash certificates to owners toward trade in.
That’s a Siata Spring next to it (Fiat 850 based). Tells me owner knows what he has and it’s all in good shape.
Greetings All,
Mine had “wood” dash, in that it had a vinyl overlay of wood grain.
Contact paper………. was factory done, saw several others, we all had the same grain.
Ummmm, . . . . uhhhhh, . . . does anyone really believe that they will get a bid at that starting price?!?!? I wish them well, and perhaps the old adage of “It only takes one” will work. Very nice little car, but I think their pricing is too high for this car!
FIAT. Fix it again Tony
Really? That’s all you got? Like none of us Fiat fans have ever heard that old worn out slam on the cars we love
Thank you Bob!
I may be off by a year or so, but engine size from ’67-’68 was 843cc. ’69-’70 was 817cc. ’71-’73 was 903cc. Those are aftermarket Cromodora wheels, not OEM. This one looks like it was stored in a vacuum. They rusted on the ships going to America! Fun cars if not rusty.
I don’t know where the author has seen one of these go for $10k-19k. I’ve never seen that. Most of them were rust traps, including the two I owned. Loved the little car but this expected price is outrageous.
Seems like there aren’t many old Fiats which sell for more than $5k.
Beautiful car though! I’ve always been fascinated by these. I wouldn’t mind owning one someday.
That dash looks so much better than the station wagon vinyl-coated tin they came with stock. I had one of the 903cc “Sport” models of the 850 Spider and 90 MPH would have taken a while to get to going down a steep grade. I don’t think it could do it if it was going up hill (even a little). Great looking little car, though!
I worked on these cars in Costa Mesa Ca. back in 1968. Some of them had a transmission that had a button on the gear knob for shifting. I think the tranny was called an INCANDACENT Trans. which I went to Fiat school to learn the tran. The carbs also had a problem where the main jet would come loose in the bowl.They were really nice fun toys with good sound.
Harry Kidd: That’s IDROCONVERT, which is a semi automatic transmission. You shift it but it has a torque converter instead of a clutch plate.
FIAT. Fine Integration of Art and Technology.
The dark green car is most definitely a Siata Spring. 850 based
Looks like this from the front
When my wife bought one years ago, I thought: “Oh no! I have to keep this thing running!” I turned out to be a great car. We beat for for years & it never broke.
Location! location! location! So True! These were wonderful cars. My uncle had the franchise for awhile in Northern Ca.( Where I had a 65 mustang in bare metal for a year without gathering surface rust. ) I acquired a 1960 Fiat 1200 in the mid 70s. Still have it. No rust. But it’s stored indoors. Now I moved to San Diego and everything in my shop wants to rust before my eyes. I had to soak all my metal working tools, mills, lathe, drill presses in 90 weight. All my collector cars are taking s beating. The salt air is a nightmare! Here is the fiat.
@Healeymonster, whenever you’re ready to pass on that 1200, please let me know. It must be the prettiest one I’ve seen!
Thanks Rob. But this one and the Healey will remain in the family for the next generation. Too much history to let it go.
Nice. I love this body style. I had a ’63 1600-S which used this platform with the twin-cam OSCA motor. Talk about a screamer!
I had a ’65 1500 Cabrio back in the mid 1970s. When I got it, it already had 93k miles on the original engine. I drove it hard and it ran perfectly. It had skinny bias ply tires (remember those?!), and it had the smoothest, most predictable break away in switchback turns. I felt like Juan Manuel Fangio driving it. I sold it a year later with 97k miles to a friend in college, who in turn put another 10k miles on it before he sold it. We both agreed, it was a great car. I wish I had another, especially a ’67 with the 5 speed.
I would love a Osca powered Fiat!
It was truly a monster. Handled like a dream. went like scoot. 4-wheel disc brakes. The 1200s were very nice, but a little underpowered. The OSCA engine took care of that. The only thing it really lacked was a 5-speed. I wonder the tranny from the ’67 1500 would have fit. It could have cruised easily at 100mph with an extra gear.
It was never imported so everything was in Italian. Not a word of English on the entire car. Really miss it. It was a once-in-a-lifetime car.
I traded a boombox and $50 cash for one of these when I was at school in the 80’s. It was toy-like, almost like a pretend car. Lawnmower level of power. I moved on to own several of the 124 and 2000 Spiders, which I found better in every way. The price is wildly enthusiastic.
If this car is as solid and original as depicted, the price isn’t that crazy. What makes it not worth the asking price is that the gas tank repair requires drivetrain removal (PIA) and there’s clearly something not right with the top. Also, no engine bay photos and no underside photos of crossmember make one wonder why?
Had a friend that had one of these back in the late 1980’s. He got the thing going just over 70mph once going down a long looong hill. Thought for sure we were gonna die.
One of these with a motor cycle engine in it *could maybe* be fun — if you really wanted one of these things. But having been in one a few times I can tell you there is no way in hell I would pay anywhere near $10,000 for one even if it was in perfect mint condition.