Fiat?

What is it?

Franklin. 1922? 1923?

Looks like Fiat to me. Tipo 1

It definitely a Fiat.

RATS! Missed another one.

Franklin. 1922? 1923?

Definitely NOT a Franklin.

OK, now narrow it down, what year and model Fiat is it??????

1916 must be close. It looks to be a model 70

There is a subtitle to the photo saying it's a 1916 Fiat Tipo 3. This photo has been featured before on another web site. There was confusion over what model it was, on there as well.

The Jess Willard Mystery. ( UpdateII 1914 Fiat , not Tipo 55, but Tipo 505 ) <br> (Update on Jess Jackson in a 1910 Chalmers): - PreWarCar

This would be a Poughkeepsie built Fiat?

I don't think it's a 505. I think it's a 70.

I honestly don't know.

It is obviously one of the larger models before the end of WW1. It is fairly long wheelbase, so if the 4 litre approx displacement Tipo 3, it is obviously not the shorter and lighter Tipo 3 TER. Tipo4 was a 6 cylinder of about the same piston displacement as Tipo 3 but had a longer bonnet or hood. Tipo 5 and 6 were the real monsters , the main difference being that the Tipo 6 had a longer wheelbase. The engines were a massive 9 litre displacement 4 cylinder fixed head side valve. I had one of these engines that came from General Grimwade's car, and ran a small sawmill for many years at Longwarry, near here. We were fairly casual about things li8ke this if they did not represent a complete car, or if the deal was likely to involve replacement by another engine to do the same work. When we did pick it up it had been discarded for a while and the sump had vanished. Paul Freehill had ambitions of gathering enough to re-construct one; and I traded it as it was to him for a fairly good 1919 Series 5 Mercer engine. The features you look for to decide whether a big FIAT is Tipo 3 or Tipo 5 are 1) the scale, 2) chain drive, and 3) a de-compress control to make it easier to swing the engine with the Armstrong starter. I cannot see much that might determine that it is Tipo 5.

I understand that only the larger models were built in Poughkeepsie NY. Probably production may have contiued longer there than in Turin during the hostilities. I discovered one marker of American Fiat production on a farm trailer axle which I picked up about three miles from here, and which may have been part of General Grimwade's car also. It bears the brand of Park, which I think also forged crankshafts for many cars.

Tipo 505 was one of the smaller FIATs of the early 1920's . It was a 4 cylinder with bore and stroke 75 by 130 EMUs or millimetres. ( An EMU is an ethnic meausurement unit. I regard the metric system as often useful for scientific purposes, but other wise it is Napoleon's revenge on the human race. When you need to measure something, the basic consideration is that you use units that bear a sensible relationship to what you are measuring. Here it was forced upon us by politicians without intelligence in practical matters.

The Tipo 510 is a 6 clyinder version of the 505 with same bore and stroke. These in 1923 had about the same new price as the much largrer Cadillac V8. The elegance of a lot of mechanical detail of these might be extraordinary, were it not that Vittorio Jano's signiture is on many design drawingsfor them.

Tipo 1 has a '1.8 litre 4 cylinder fixed head sidevalve engine in a car not much lighter than the approx 2 3/4 litre Tipo 2. Virtually the same engine, but with a much lighter flywheel gave much better performance in the very short wheelbase/ narrow track Tipo Zero. Michael Sedgwick told us the example of this at Montagu Motor Museum was capable of 50 mph and 25 mpg. I have two of these to restore. One came from Hungerford in south-western Queensland. Much of that region has severe widespread flooding right now, so when it has slowly drained away the cattle will not be to hungry for a while.

As Ivan states, it is one of the bigger 4 cylinder Fiats from the mid teens. (The Model 505 of the 1920s was around 2 1/2 litres capacity and was the bigger brother to the much more popular 1460cc Model 501). To me it looks too big to be a Tipo 3 which shares its bore and stroke with the 4 1/2 litre Bentley on the late 1920s - 100mm bore x 140mm stroke. I think it might be the next one bigger. As far as I know the Tipo 4 was about 6 1/2 litres and the Tipo 5 was 130mm x 170mm which is around 9 litres. It was one of these biggest models which visited NZ in 1992. There was also a six cylinder model which was built in Poughkeepsie only but I am not sure of its model designation or its bore and stroke but I believe it was around 8 litres capacity. I think an example of this model found its was from the US to England some years ago. I have never seen one myself. The Tipo 3 was supposedly the smallest model built at Poughkeepsie but the smaller Tipo 2 was available for US sale - imported from Italy.