A Fiat 500 Bambina delivered freedom and style in 1970s Perth
She’s never loved a car as much since: Helen Trinca’s Fiat 500 was sheer chic and gave her the freedom she craved.
I really wanted a Lambretta. Or a Vespa. It was 1971 and with a weekly cadet salary of around $47, it was time to get some wheels. An Italian scooter would fit the bill, cheap but quirky, and far more to my taste than a second-hand Holden.
Dad had different ideas. Anxious for my safety, he vetoed the scooter and even the second-hand car and offered to loan me money for a new vehicle.
I went in search of the cheapest new car I could find.
So began my love affair with the Fiat 500. I paid $1380 for my cream Bambina, an extraordinarily low sum compared with the average car price back then of about $3500.
But I loved my Fiat largely because it was different, and for a girl from flat, swampy outer suburban Perth, being distinctive was important.
I loved that my car had the engine at the back, the boot was at the front, that you could roll back the little black sunroof and get really burnt by the West Australian sun. Younger sister, still without wheels, spent most of her time in that car, shouting from the open roof.
I loved that people smiled at stoplights, that I was driving an overseas, imported car, a statement car. There were other, imported small cars zipping around the capital back then – the Fiat shared the back yard at times with my sister’s aquamarine Mini. The Mini was fun, but for sheer chic, the Italians had it all over the Brits.
FIRST LOVES
Good Angela, Bad Angela: no mystery who stole my heart
Whether she was a witch, a detective, a murderer or the mother from hell, Angela Lansbury captivated in all her roles.
Besotted and bespotted – a life enlivened by leopard print
Jenna Clarke plunged into the world and ethos of her adored, feisty (and possibly feline) grandmother.
How I fell head over heels – and heels over head – in love
Concussion, a busted wrist, broken foot, black eyes: nothing could deter Tim Douglas from pursing his first, one-wheeled love.
Country life made the new world home
During two years in Wee Waa, Rosemary Neill at last started to feel she was having a truly Australian childhood.
My heart was racing with love for a Bambina
She’s never loved a car as much since: Helen Trinca’s Fiat 500 was sheer chic and gave her the freedom she craved.
Life in plastic perfect for a model child
A childhood on the move meant frequent changes of locale and school, but the fascination with Airfix models was unchanging.
Dear John, sorry may not wash … but I do feel bad
A real-life encounter with a teenage fantasy crush was doomed to crash and burn.
Mamma mia! Thank you for the music, Molly
ABBA’s arrival in mid-70s Australia was greeted with great excitement by the youngest of the Meagher boys.
Blissful age when the girl next door was truly mine
Tom Dusevic and his first love bonded over toys, books, tea parties and Romper Room and shared a roof, but not a bed.
If music be the food of teen romance …
Geordie Gray was shy, but who needs Cupid when you have MSN Messenger on your side in pursuing love?
How I discovered just what lies under Minnesota
Laid up in bed, Cameron Stewart’s bored gaze fell upon the America wall map, and stuck. Decades later he is still looking.
Rustling up true love
After cooking her way through childhood, school and university Bridget Cormack has found a love who shares her passion.
X-Men, Dr Strange, Wanda et al made me marvel at their marvellousness
In a world where TV was still monochrome, the vibrant colours of Marvel comics were almost as arresting as the heroes portrayed.
Pony tale full of feeling, captured at a gallop
An illicit equine affair kindled a passion for horses, but precipitated a painful family drama when all was at last revealed.
My first love was time-travelling Marty McFly
Trent Dalton leads our new series, in which our writers recall the poignant and funny moments of their early passions.
An old friend of note who waits faithfully for me
How Andrew McMillen re-discovered his first love after years of playing the field.
First-time flyer on long-distance date with destiny
Two kids left with their families on their first overseas flights, in the 1970s. Both wrote diaries, recording their excitement. What happened next?
Crystal set radio was my ticket to ride
For a Melbourne-based boy who couldn’t wait to embrace the new 60s music, a crystal set radio was the ticket to ride.
These days when people ask me what I drive, I usually say it’s a white one and leave it at that. I owned a second-hand Mercedes for a few years, but often got mixed up and told people I had a BMW.
I break out in a rash every time I have to use those horrible air pumps at service stations, and yearn for the days when you pulled into the petrol station and asked one of the callow youths on deck if they could please check the oil and water and the tyres. I run a tidy interior, but when the exterior grime gets to critical level, I hand that white car over to the carwash. Not a car person, you might say. Fifty years ago, it was a different story.
My first love received a great deal of my personal attention. Every Saturday, the hose came out and the Fiat was washed and spruced for the week ahead. At least once month I rotated the tyres (including the spare) to make sure the wear on the tread was equal.
Does anyone even do that anymore? Does anyone even have a real spare tyre anymore?
It’s years since I’ve changed a tyre, but back then, I was a dab hand, taught by a father who was rather chuffed by the whole thing.
Fiddling with the Fiat on a Saturday afternoon in the ’70s was fun, but also evidence of being a grown-up, with a weekly wage.
It’s a well-known but under-researched fact that in a country such as Australia, a car (even a motorised scooter) is all about freedom. There may be a generation emerging that thinks it’s bad global citizenship to own a car, a generation that can make good use of share and rental cars, but back then owning your own car was liberating and exciting and definitely guilt-free.
And then, one night, after too many glasses of Stone’s Green Ginger Wine at a party, the Fiat and I slammed into the side of rock wall.
Lucky to escape without injury, I’d inflicted considerable damage on my baby. It felt almost personal. I was supposed to be the responsible adult in this relationship and I’d failed. I’d washed and polished and kept its tyres in perfect symmetry, but when it came to the crunch (so to speak) I did wrong by my first love.
Somehow I managed to spin it to the family that I’d swerved to avoid an oncoming car. My father had died not long before and I doubt he would have swallowed that story, but my mother, bless her soul, chose to.
The Fiat was repaired of course, but was never quite the same again. A little later, Mum suggested I sell the Bambina and take over the family car – a Toyota Corolla. It was a better, bigger, safer vehicle, but one I could never quite relate to. No Saturday afternoon cosseting for the Corolla.
Later, during a stint in Kalgoorlie, and a series of punctures, I was pleased I knew where the jack was and could put the spare on. But I sold that car when I could. For some reason, another Fiat seemed to be out of the question and I settled for the next best thing – a clapped-out Volkswagen Beetle. The doors didn’t really shut and the blue exterior was sun-damaged and faded. But once again, people smiled and waved at stoplights. I’d moved on, but found a new European love.
Helen Trinca is editor of The Deal.