1959 Fiat 1100 Millicento

This website is about my car, one of the few surviving examples of an almost forgotten family car that was popular in Ireland from the late 1950’s to the mid-1960’s. It is also about the FIAT 1100 in general, known as the Millecento, and referred to in Fiat’s advertising of the day as “the magic Millecento”.

Through this website I’m keen to hear from anyone else who owns a “magic Millecento”, or from anyone at all who’d like to share their memories of this car. Please contact me here with anything at all to do with the Fiat 1100 – I’d love to hear from you and share everyone’s stories.

Please click on the About page to find out more of the site, what I’m hoping to achieve, and how I’d like your help.

Or just scroll down to read more.

I use the brilliant Statcounter to track visitors to this website. It never ceases to amaze me when I see all the different countries where people are logging on and visiting this website.

I published a version of this picture below back in May last year (here), but the range of countries has increased greatly since then as well.

To everyone, from wherever you are, welcome. Feel free to drop me a message to let my know your interest in the Fiat1100.

This image is copyrighted.

It’s e-mails like this that makes this website so exciting to work on. In February, I received an e-mail from the grandson of the gentleman, R.E. Johnson in Donegal Town, who sold this car to my father (as referred to here in the history of this car).

Beautiful car! R.E. Johnston Motors belonged to my grandfather. The company is long gone but Id love to get some reproduction dealer window stickers made up, I dont suppose your 1100 still has one? If so, any possibility you could put up or email me a picture of it?

I actually bought two Fiats from the same Mr. Johnson – a true gentleman.

John, from Invercargill in New Zealand sent me these lovely comments. As he highlighted, the wide variety of locations of the people contacting me via this website is just amazing (I wrote about this before here).

What a great website you’ve put together, and what a wonderful tribute to the Fiat 1100 (Millecento). Your enthusiasm is spreading far and wide – I found mention of your site on the Italian Millecento forum of which I’m a member, see the site here.

I’m in Invercargill, NZ, and have a tidy South African built 1961 1100-103D very similar to yours. There are still a few 1100s around – I know of a very nice one in Dunedin and another in Christchurch. I think the lack of salt on the roads has probably assisted in their survival…!

All the best, John.

It’s great getting these comments from Fiat1100 owners all around the world. Hopefully, John, if you see this, drop me an e-mail at info@fiat1100.net if you’d like to share some photographs of your car.

In February 1958, the Motoring Life magazine published a Road Test article on the Fiat 1100 – Road Test No.66! Back in the 1950’s the enthusiast’s source of car news was the Irish magazine, Motoring Life. The Autocar and The Motor were around, but it was well known that they were never openly critical, especially of British cars of the time.

Click here to read the key points of what that review of the Fiat1100 said back then, with some additional thoughts and commentary from myself on the accuracy, or otherwise, of their findings.

One of the main reasons I set up this website was my hope to hear from people interested in the Fiat 1100, particularly in Ireland. It was great then to get this e-mail from Elaine. (It was some time ago, however, so apologies Elaine).

hello there. Your 1100 is lovely,,, smashing colour,, my dad has two of them,they are 103 H’s .. he also has fiat 1500′s etc, We’re Fiat mad.!! I love the 1100′s. Finally I’ve found an Irish site.

I did check back with Elaine to see if she had any pictures that I could publish, but unfortunately I haven’t heard back. I’d love to know more – I’m not that sure which model the 1100H is.

The 1500 was a lovely car. I myself had 2 of them – a 1965 model in peacock blue (a lovely car, and lovely colour) and a 1967 model  in red.

Like the 1100 some years previously, the 1500 was ‘way ahead of its competitors in it day.

If anyone is e-mailing the site, you can use the Contact Page here, or if you would like to send on some pictures which I can share with everyone else visiting the site, you can e-mail me at info@fiat1100.net.

This interesting e-mail came through from a reader of the website who have some wire wheels available for someone to buy.

HELLO, I HAVE 2 WIRE WHEELS I PICKED UP 25 YEARS AGO FROM AN OLD REPAIR GARAGE IN TOWN. VGC, TIRES STILL RETAINING AIR AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! STAMPED C. BORRANI 14X4J RECORD RW3449, DATED 12-59. CONTACTED BORRANI OF N. AMERICA (ESINOR) AND WAS TOLD THEY WERE BUILT FOR LATE 50′S FIAT 1100-103. I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO FIND A GOOD HOME FOR THEM SO THEY CAN BE LOVED AND APPRECIATED!

The reader is based in Buffalo, New York. If you’re interested in getting your hands on these wheels, e-mail me here and I’ll put you in contact.

A reader has e-mailed me here letting me know that they have a 1958 Fiat 1100 1200 Granluce that they are interested in selling. You can see some of the pictures they sent me below.

The reader is based in Phoenix, AZ. If you’re interested in making contact about this car, you can e-mail me here and I’ll pass on your details.

Fiat 1100 1200 Granluce - Photo 1

Fiat 1100 1200 Granluce - Photo 2

Fiat 1100 1200 Granluce - Photo 3

This e-mail came through from a reader of the site recently:

I used to see an 1100 like your car abandoned in a field a few miles outside Tuam, Co Galway up to the early 1990s, but I dont know whether it is there or not. I might look up Google Earth. I was in Rome in 2008 and I didnt see one example, compared to a few I had seen on a previous visit in 1983……. I do have a few models of this car, new ones in 1/43. Nice little car….

I remember this car – in fact, on one occasion I stopped on my way to Galway to see if I could have a look. The car was in a lot on which there was a mobile home.

It took some effort to get to the door of the mobile home because of the huge dogs that were around the place.

I asked for permission to check out the car, which I received, but sort of grudgingly so. I don’t really think that the resident / owner cared much for the car at all.

When I went over for a look, you wouldn’t believe the amount of bones that were around the car, inside and out. The car was obviously where the dogs were fed, or at least where they went to eat once they were given their meat bones.

It was an interesting experience.

You’re probably right about when the car either was removed, or when it just stopped being visible from the road. The lot itself did start getting overgrown a lot in the years after I visited.

As far as I remember, here’s the location – on the inside of the bend in the map linked here - View Larger Map.

This e-mail came through from Karen, in Brisbane, Australia. If you’re interested in following up, please contact me via the Contact Page, and I’ll pass on your details:

I’ve just found your website while searching for interest in old Fiats in Australia. I’m doing this because my mother is talking about dismantling the ‘Fiat shed’ and getting rid of the cars under it. Perhaps if I hadn’t been so keen on travelling all over the world, I might’ve kept the car, in which I and my mother learned to drive, on the road.

My mother’s parents bought the 1956 Fiat Millecento from an in-law, but I don’t know how long they had it. I can remember the day they gave us the car. We tried to put my poor old grandfather in the back but he couldn’t bend himself to get in. I thought that was why we left without him, because he couldn’t get in!

Later as a teenager, I used to get 32 miles to the gallon and it had incredible take off from the lights. I liked surprising people in modern cars alongside me when I took off out front Someone left me a note in a car park, offering me their same model for free, so there’s a rusting 1100 in Mum’s yard too. Also, we have a Fiat station wagon, that actually was used by the Aussie Folk band, Wikketywack, many years ago.

Reading about people’s enthusiasm for this car makes me nostalgic – and a bit regretful – but neither I nor my husband are handy with cars, so it wouldn’t be practical for us to restore it.

I would love to hear from anyone in Australia who may be interested in these vehicles. They are located in Brisbane.