Let’s Talk About The Interesting Door Situations Of The Old Fiat 1100

If you’re like most of us, you woke up this morning almost naked, clad only in a series of bicycle tire inner tubes that bound you to a crudely improvised framework made up of old library chairs and clothing racks, all set into the bottom of an old drained swimming pool in an abandoned YMCA. And as you struggle to free yourself from the rubbery binds, occasionally pausing to vomit some alarmingly turquoise fluid, what was probably going through your mind were questions about the Fiat 1100’s doors.

Not the later 1100, but the first one, built from 1937 to 1953. The one that looked a bit like a more grown-up Topolino, with an 1100cc inline-four making a ravenous 32 horsepower. These cars came in a surprisingly large number of bodystyles, including a B-pillar-less sedan, a four-door Berline, a special Taxi variant, one with a roll-back roof, and even a truck.

The way the doors were handled on these cars is interesting, and I think puts it in some pretty rare company, especially in one particular way I’ll point out. Hopefully by now you’ve climbed out of that drained swimming pool so you can direct your focus here most effectively.

So, it seems the most popular variant of the 1100 was this one, the four-door Berline, which had a sort of coupe-like look and featured ra French door setup, with rear-hinged doors, as you can see up there. With both side doors open, the pillarless design really shows off the incredible interior access it affords:

I mean, look at that! Pillarless designs are so damn cool, and so rare in modern cars. The Honda Element may be the most recent mass-market car I can think of that did this, and because that clapdoor Lincoln from 2020 kept the pillar. The coupé-like look of the Berline is really evident in the picture at the lower right, too.

Now, compare this bodystyle to the equally-pillarless sedan, which had a longer wheelbase and an extra side window at the rear:

Now, what I find really interesting is that this same body was also adapted into the taxicab variant, which also had rear-hinged doors, but this time at the front instead of the rear, since the cab added a B-pillar, upon which the doors were hinged, the opposite sort of setup from the sedan:

It appears that the taxi’s B-pillar was actually a full-width bulkhead, to divide the passengers from the taxi driver, because you know how classist cabs can be. I’m trying to think of another car that had bodystyle variations that added or removed B-pillars like this, or swapped how doors were hinged. Sure, plenty of cars switched from French doors to conventionally-hinged doors, but that was usually a year-to-year change, like the Fiat 500/600 or the Citroën 2CV, not offering both styles at the same time.

I’m sure there must be other examples, I just can’t think of them off the top of my head?

The doorhandles themselves are kind of fascinating, too, being vertically oriented, which is unusual, and having this odd hanging hook sort of design. From a distance they resemble spoons, hung to dry perhaps, but they’re not quite that. There’s a strange musical instrument quality they have I like, too.

The truck variant of the 1100 is an appealing little machine as well, dispensing with all chrome brightwork, even the bumpers, to make something much more utilitatian-seeming. The fun doorhandles remain, and I think the body/frame is taken from the larger sedan, based on the wheelbase and the placement of the semaphore-style turn indicator/trafficator just adt of the cab and not inset into the bodywork as on the Berline.

The slatted bedsides are a nice touch, too.

It’s said that these actually drove pretty well, considering they were designed to be mostly affordable basic transportation; the independent front suspension is especially notable for the time, too!

Fascinating stuff, right? I bet someone else will bring these cars up to you today, and boy will you be ready.