Talk:Fiat 125

Front wheel drive?

I object to the following: "handling and dynamics.due in part to its front wheel drive lay out" the 125 was definitely rear wheel drive. And punctuation is incorrect —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.36.52.7 (talk) 08:27, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Clean-Up

I think we should split this page into Fiat 125 and Polski Fiat 125 (plus a redirect for FSO 125). Any thoughts? --Asterion ^{talk to me} 10:13, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. The various Fiat "three box" models (not just the 125) were the basis for several cars made in Eastern Europe by (at least) FSO and Polski Fiat (PMZ) of Poland, Zastava (Yugo) of Yugoslavia, and AutoVAZ (Lada) of Russia, so the current situation of mentioning the Polish one is the worst of all worlds: neither just the Fiat info, nor the whole picture.

If we had all the variants described in detail on the relevant Fiat model pages it might get rather confusing. I think each car has enough history of its own (production details, political relationships etc.) to stand an article. (So, this is a vote for yes to your suggestion.)

But there should also be an article about the extensive international deals Fiat made, and how they compare with the current Fiat world-car projects, plus international takeovers in the car industry of today. And that would make an appropriate jumping-off point for the various individual licensed/sold-off models. There's a lot to research though; the Russian deal in particular led to Fiat getting supplies of Russian steel for years. The low grade of this is supposed to have been partly responsible for Fiat's reputation for rust. Not so obvious in Fiat's home market, which may explain how it was allowed to happen, but an image disaster in the UK for example. But I need to do some digging to get any documentary evidence to cite this as fact. Meanwhile, stub pages for each model? – Kieran T ^{(talk | contribs)} 20:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

That is a great idea. I know about Zastavas being based on the Fiat 128 (I created the article Zastava Skala, I still own one myself :) but I don't know much about the 125 story. It is indeed a fascinating subject. About the rust, I also read somewhere that Fiat did not use to paint the metal panels in the inside... Zastava tried to solve the external rust problem caused by road gritting by using some sort of PVC waxolit compound. If I find the time, I would help out on this too. Cheers, --E Asterion ^{u talking to me?} 22:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations, I have arrived! So, I understand you want to carve out the Fiat 125p part out of the article and work on it spearately. Seems like a good idea to me, especially that Polski Fiat 126p is also separated from Fiat 126. I guess there can be some controversy as to the naming of the article, but I guess we can settle for Polski Fiat 125p for the time being. Am I anywhere near what you were thinking about? Bravada, talk - 12:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Iceland? Wha? *pffft* ... But yes, you've got it. – Kieran T ^{(talk | contribs)} 12:49, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

In response to "what do we do now"... the first step might be to get some dates together. Does anybody know a trustworthy online resource in English? The site linked from the present article is in Polish... can you translate out the useful bits, Bravada? ;) Also, I have some brochures on the 125p and the Polonez, which I need to look out of their dusty boxes. – Kieran T ^{(talk | contribs)} 13:04, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

The new article now exists: Polski Fiat 125p, and the present article has been scrubbed a bit cleaner... I started to remove some of the 125p copy to avoid duplication but just couldn't leave the rest of the article as it was. I've not added anything I can't substantiate, but I'm a bit unhappy about what's already there. In particular I don't think we have a full rundown of models and engines. Anyone? – Kieran T ^{(talk | contribs)} 20:06, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I wanted to point to CarsFromItaly.com as a possible source of additional info, but it seems that all the contents from there were actually already dumped here. So, if anybody will be doing proper reference work on this article, please see [1] (the site has been down for some good few months now, you have to access it via the Wayback Machine). Bravada, talk - 20:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks much better. I will keep an eye on ebay in case I can fish out an old brochure. E Asterion ^{u talking to me?} 06:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Photo!

Now that we have carved out the Polski Fiat out of this article, we basically need a photo of an actual Fiat 125 (Italian - square headlights and stuff) - perhaps somebody could harass some enthusiasts/owners for one (as the Tagora example shows, no dream impossible). Bravada, talk - 11:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I shall be going to Auto Italia Autumn Car Day on 24 September. Fingers crossed! E Asterion ^{u talking to me?} 12:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

PS: I also contacted an Argentinian Fiat 125 club I found using google. They have really good photos. I requested permission to use one in particular. I will keep you informed. Regards, E Asterion ^{u talking to me?} 13:06, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I got permission to use the image. I just uploaded it and added an infobox too. Please check for any obvious mistakes. E Asterion ^{u talking to me?} 20:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi! I just popped in for a minute. Thanks for your great work! Great photo - so rare to have one of a car in motion, and the owner is surely enjoying his 125. Just one small thing - AFAIK, the guideline for automobile pics is that the vehicle should not be modified anyhow (original condition), while I think this is not only restored, but also modded. Secondly, in general the pictures should not contain a person, even with his/her consent, just the vehicle. I wonder whether you could get a suplementary pic from the club, this time of a vehicle restored to original condition? Thanx! Bravada, talk - 22:57, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

That might prove a bit difficult. This one was the best one, the rest are either too low-res or are rally-prepared cars. I could do some photoshop work in the image I uploaded (i.e. blackening/blurring face out, maybe even cloning back on the original hub caps). I also found this other one[2] right now, if you think it is OK, I will contact the creator. E Asterion ^{u talking to me?} 00:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi! Sorry for the late reply. Now, I don't think this is the kind of pic we are looking for, as these don't seem to be stock rims, and it isn't cropped that great (the entire car has to fit in the photo. Let me browse the site and come up with some other propositions... There: [3] , [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. It would be good to ask the owners of the cars whether they are really in original condition or perhaps some mods were made. Some of them are also quite low-res, so perhaps the authors have higher-res versions of those pics. Finally, I have seen those cars, appearing to be in original condition, to have very varying front ends - perhaps it would be good to find out more about those. Thanks, Bravada, talk - 11:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Size

I don't agree that this car is a large family car, it was always considered mid-size, linked is "d" segmend and there's bmw 5 listed, this fiat was smaller it was bmw 3 series size, on german wikipedia it's listed as mittelklasse so mid size https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelklasse

Peter 18:07, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

In Italy in the mid-1960s the big sellers in the Fiat range were the 600, the 500 and later the 850. As far as I remember something like 7 cars in every 10 sold in Italy at that time were Fiats. The Fiat 1100 was a bit bigger, and as people got richer, by the early 1970s the big seller became the Fiats 128 (which slightly indirectly replaced the Fiat 1100) and 127 (which was reassuringly a lot more spacious inside than an 850). By the later 1970s imports were making inroads (Golf, Kadett) and the Alfasud put in an appearance, so Fiat no longer had the place to themselves as they had in the 1960s. (How many people still remember the Ritmo?) Back in the 1960s the Fiat 125 was about the same size as the Alfa Romeo Giulia Berlina and the Lancia Fulvia Berlina. That was borderline posh, and unless you lived in a posh bit of a prosperous city like (or near to) Milan, Turin or Rome, a Fiat 125 was big at that time. If you had access to bit more cash you could splash out on an imported Opel Rekord or for that matter a Mercedes or Jaguar and get something even bigger. But not many people did. It was Fiat that dominated the Italian market when the Fiat 125 was around. To be sure, in Germany you could even in the 1960s call the Fiat 125 Mittleklasse along with the Taunus 17 M, the Ascona, the BMW 1500/1600/1800 and the VW Typ 3. The Kaefer was small and the Mercedes was big. Opel Rekord? Each time they replaced it it got a bit bigger than it had been before. So ... if you were living in Italy in the 1960s (and a lot of Fiat 124/125 drivers were) you'd say the Fiat 125 was big. If you were in West Germany you'd have thought it mid-sized. If - like many wikipedia contributors - you lived in North America you'd say the Fiat 125 was a tiddler (aka a small car). Since wikpedia contributors come from all sorts of (1) places and (2) decades, launching discussions about the size of a car is likely to tell us more about you than about the car. Which is less than encyclopedic. But I guess it may nevertheless be interesting for those interested. Best wishes and stay well. Charles01 (talk) 19:51, 25 November 2021 (UTC)