I bought a Fiat 126! See why it's one of the coolest cars ever.
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00:00this is a Fiat 126 in fact it's my very own Fiat 126 and in this video I'm
00:06gonna show you around it I'm gonna explain why I bought it and how much I
00:11paid for it and tell you the reasons why I think this is one of the coolest cars
00:15in the world the Fiat 126 was built in Italy between 1972 and 1973 but it was
00:22also built under license in Poland from 1973 until 2000 and in Italy they made
00:29about 1 million of these things but in Poland they build 3.3 million seen as
00:34modern compared to the other things you could get in Poland at the time to
00:37actually buy one of these you needed approval from the government and then
00:41you'd have to wait about two years because the waiting list was so long
00:44and that meant that people as soon as they bought their cars and often sell
00:48them the next day at twice the price now this particular car is actually one of
00:51the Polish 126s and you can tell it apart from the Italian one because it
00:55has Polsky Fiat on the badge on the front and 126P on the badge on the back
01:00it also has a slightly higher ride height and orange indicator repeaters
01:04on the doors underneath the skin the Fiat 126 is pretty much identical
01:08mechanically to the 500 that it replaced it's super super simple dead easy to
01:14work on and the spring for the front suspension is just a metal bar that
01:17connects the two wheels it's just insane how basic this thing is compared to
01:22modern cars it's it's the complete polar opposite another thing that's
01:26interesting is that it's got all-round drum brakes but they did improve them in
01:291980 to make them a little bit stronger another safety feature added in 1980
01:35was some hazard warning lights yes huge safety gains there I must say now this
01:42car has the chrome bumpers which are most sought-after yeah you can get one
01:47with black plastic bumpers which was introduced in 1984 but really it just
01:51does not look as good welcome to the inside of the Polsky Fiat and yes
01:55luxurious it certainly is not now we'll give it this it has soft touch material
02:01on the dash like you don't actually get in quite a few modern cars but the rest
02:05of it is very very basic and very very Spartan you've got exposed metal under
02:09here and screw heads that you can catch your body on and cut yourself the
02:15steering wheel is made out of the cheapest plastic I have ever felt and
02:18it's got just two spokes then you've just got a single speedometer it does
02:22have an odometer on it which says 52,000 kilometers though that could be a hundred
02:27and fifty two thousand or two hundred and fifty two thousand I have no way of
02:30knowing then there's a fuel gauge which we'll get back to got Banker switches
02:34there for the lights the rear heated screen and there's all-important hazard
02:38warning lights whoo then there's this button here which I'll talk more about
02:42in a bit and here we have the original stereo for the car which is just tuned
02:47into Poland I think and you have a single speaker down there that it plays
02:51through yeah yeah yeah that's about all it receives it's a bit of a shame
03:00because you do want the stereo to work because this car is so noisy but it has
03:04no soundproofing I mean look at the headliner it's just a bit of carpet up
03:07there it's really really basic now one of the main reasons I wanted this car
03:12was for its engine because it's rear-mounted and it's air-cooled and I
03:18couldn't afford an air-cooled Porsche so yeah this was the only alternative I
03:22could think of so the car started off with a 600 cc two-cylinder air-cooled
03:27unit which is what this has yeah it has 23 horsepower 43 Newton meters of
03:32torque but yeah funny little engine that makes a funny little noise and doesn't
03:36deliver much power the one two six may be a small car but it does have a
03:40modicum of practicality so there's some very thin door bins yeah wouldn't get a
03:44bottle in there though and little place there which seems perfect for a mobile
03:49phone can't believe they thought about that back in 1972 also you can slide
03:54different seats forwards and backwards I swear you can put them backwards as well
03:57yeah you can and you can recline them almost low enough you can lie down and
04:02have a sleep in this car which probably would be handy when it breaks down you
04:06need to wait for someone to come and rescue you right let's have a look
04:10underneath the bonnet of the one two six so yes you have a front boot with an
04:14oakish amount of space so in here I've got some spares some paint for touching
04:19up there's a jerry can I'll explain that in a bit there's a warning triangle in
04:26here we've also got a spare wheel a full-size spare wheel but that's because
04:30the wheels are very small you've got your battery down there which isn't a
04:35very good battery the capacity is quite small on it and when you combine that
04:38with an alternator that really doesn't charge very well quite often you come to
04:42this thing and it needs bump starting there's some other funny things about it
04:47for instance the covers for the lights which is supposed to protect the back of
04:51them keep falling off and then there's the wiring which is just underneath this
04:55mat and it's an absolute mess as you can see there is not a lot of room here in
05:00the back of a Fiat one two six yet this was used as a main family car for the
05:05Polish so they go off on long driving holidays in these things fully packed
05:09fully loaded with the family in it and then often have suitcases piled up on
05:13the roof as well completely crazy interesting thing is that the people in
05:17the back of the car can actually control the car's heating because there's a
05:20little switch there which you move around to alter the amount of airflow
05:24going from the engine into the car's cabin takes a long time to get hot though
05:30I can tell you there are a few funny features on this one two six that you do
05:33have to get used to so if you want to use the parking lights you press this
05:37switch forward then you'll have the lights on without the keys in the
05:41ignition however when you're driving and you want the lights on you have to press
05:44it down that way and then you have the side lights on and then you use this
05:48stalk to go into normal beam and then press it again to go into high beam so
05:53now so it's funny is the indicators so when you put the indicator on you get a
05:57flash up there in the speedo but then it kind of disappears and you don't see it
06:01again and you're not sure if the indicators are working and that happens
06:04in both directions it's a little bit frustrating but totally common on this
06:08car then there's this little button up here which is for the windscreen washer
06:13it's not connected to a motor it's connected to a hand operated bump so you
06:17just press it and it squirts the water at the windscreen and then you use this
06:21lever to operate the windscreen wipers and they're not very good as you can see
06:26you can put it on to intermittent wipe and then you change the speed of the
06:30intermittent wipe using this little dial here this isn't actually the original
06:34dial what happened is someone broke into this car and the only thing they stole
06:37was the little knob off there bizarre however I've got a replacement that's
06:43what it should look like though I had to buy it with the whole assembly which is
06:47annoying another thing that's annoying about this car is the fact that it
06:49absolutely loves to rust I mean you give it half a chance and leave out in the
06:53wet and it will transform itself into a pile of iron oxide dust now you have to
06:58fill it with rust proofing material basically a load of special tarry goop
07:03which just stops the water getting through to the metal it's it here on the
07:06cell that's actually leaked out of the doors and it ends up on your clothes but
07:11it's the only way to stop this car just disintegrating another thing that gets
07:14on my nerves is this the heater ventilation system because I'm not
07:19entirely sure how it works so this knob that you pull in and out I think
07:24distributes the air either out of these vents here or out up against the
07:29windscreen and then there's one that has like a blue circle on it which I'm
07:33guessing is for cold air out of the front when you're driving along but I'm
07:37not entirely sure because it doesn't seem to do anything another thing that I
07:41find super frustrating about this car is that random bits of it just drop off
07:46especially the window winders whenever you shut the door as I'll demonstrate
07:51now finally then let's take this silly little Fiat for a drive now you don't
07:58turn it on using the key instead you pull levers down by the handbrake so the
08:04one the left is for the choke so you put that on when you're cold starting then
08:07you pull up on the other one to engage a starter motor and the car yes should
08:13rattle into life okay I'll just turn that back the choke doesn't need to be
08:19on that much right let's drive it
08:30so this car has a straight cut first gear so you do notice it whine
08:39also there's no synchromesh on first but all other four gears do have
08:44synchromesh's unlike on the old Fiat 500 which you had to double declutch
08:48otherwise you'd end up grinding the gears together so yeah this is a noisy
08:53little car as you can probably tell and it's quite bouncy though in some ways it
08:59means it can deal with poles quite well you just fly over them because it's so
09:02light this thing only weighs 600 kilos the brakes are interesting so they do
09:08nothing and then they suddenly lock up so you've got to be careful not to skid
09:14no ABS here folks no ABS or safety systems at all the steering there's no
09:20power assistance to it so when you're maneuvering out of junctions it can feel
09:23a little bit heavier than you might be used to but once you're driving no
09:27problem at all and here's one of my favorite things about this car is that
09:30it's so narrow just 1.3 meters you can basically fit through the gap of those
09:36smaller speed humps like now yeah you don't have to slow down it's sometimes
09:42hard to tell what speed you are doing because the speedo is in kilometers an
09:45hour though there's some little red dots which actually show you when you're
09:48supposed to change up a gear but they correspond pretty much to miles an hour
09:52so we've got 20 miles an hour 30 miles an hour and one for 50 which is about
09:56this car's top speed and believe me it feels 100 miles an hour because it's
10:00just so flimsy another thing I like about this car is the turning circle it
10:05is awesome you can just turn this thing on a penny look at that mini roundabouts
10:10and no problem at all I love that about it the other thing I love is that people
10:16just stop and stare at this thing because it's so unusual and so very very
10:21cute also the Polish lorry drivers will honk their horns in respect to this
10:25little car because they recognize it actually in Poland it was nicknamed
10:29Maluch which means little one and eventually that became its official name
10:33because everyone just called it that look at this round corners it's like a
10:39little go-kart and it feels so pure you know driving today feels nothing like
10:44this you really do feel like you're controlling a mechanical thing it is
10:49super fun and another great thing about it is it's so easy to park I mean you
10:53can just park it dead simple anywhere there's always a space for it it's only
10:57three meters long look at this is a little parking space here this would
11:02normally be hard in fact I'll do a ue so you can see it yep almost got caught out
11:09by those guys you do not want to get crashed into in this car because you are
11:12toast right okay well up the curve doesn't matter right see this parking
11:20space here it's not very big but it's big enough for a Fiat 126 and because
11:29it's left-hand drive this car it's super easy for me to see where the curve
11:34is doesn't really matter if you make a hash of things because even if you're at
11:38a wonky angle the car so narrow that it just doesn't stick out and of course you
11:43can see right the back window that was impressive parking look at that
11:51can't believe I fit in that gap that's insanely good right let's get out of
11:55here
11:59super easy ah now one of the things that's a bit weird about this car is the
12:07fuel gauge so it reads opposite so when it says it's empty it's actually full and
12:12when it's full it's empty and there's no in-between now to fill up cost a little
12:17over ten quid it's got such a small tank I don't know what the economy is I've
12:20never measured it but it's probably quite cheap there is one problem with
12:25this car though the emissions aren't great though as a result this car is not
12:30exempt from the ultra low emission zone charge and that's extending out to
12:35Greater London which will include where I live which means if I want to drive
12:38this car it's going to cost 12 pounds a day which is about the same it cost to
12:43fill up with fuel which is just bonkers anyway so other than that this car is
12:48super cheap you know it cost me 200 quid a year in insurance it cost me about 200
12:53in tax to buy it it was 1,500 quid and actually a Polish friend found it for
12:58me and then he spent another thousand pounds having it done up by a specialist
13:04so the pain work was all done any rust was removed the brakes were sorted out
13:09it was given a full service new tires put on it so that took the price to
13:132,500 pounds then I was going to drive it all the way back from Poland to
13:18England which would have been a nightmare in this little thing at 50
13:20miles an hour and the noise and the lack of comfort horrendous fortunately
13:25my mate managed to find someone who's willing to put on the back of a trailer
13:27and bring it from Poland to my house for just 200 quid which was a bargain and I
13:34think overall this car is a bit of a bargain it's so unique so quirky
13:38everyone that looks at it seems to love it makes people smile and it makes me
13:42smile as well even the horn it's just silly I hope you enjoyed this video on
13:48my Fiat 126 and if you'd like to see more on it let me know what kind of
13:51videos you want to see in the comments below also let me know if you'd like me
13:55to do a video on my supercharged Mazda MX-5 or my Porsche 911 996 if you want
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