Sometimes, when walking through the older compounds in central Beijing, you can find something unexpected, something great, like a hidden treasure. This first-generation Fiat Uno was a fantastic discovery. It is the third Uno in China I know about, and the second that I saw myself.
The first-gen Fiat Uno was produced in Italy from 1983 until 1995 with a facelift in 1989. Our wine-red Beijing car is a post-facelift example.
The first-generation Fiat Uno was a small hatchback, available in five and three-door versions. It was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro at Italdesign, and it showed: the Uno was a great-looking vehicle with clean lines, an instant classic. When I was young, growing up in the Netherlands, the Fiat Uno was one of the most popular cars in the country.
The Uno was abandoned and had been parked there for a long time. The wheel covers were gone and the tires deflated, it was covered in a thick layer of dust and dirt. The Beijing license plates are as old as the car.
The interior, with black leather seats! The steering wheel cover is a typical Chinese after-market accessory.
Until the early 2010s, cars in China had to have subsequent insurance stickers on the windshield. The oldest sticker on the Uno was from 2003, and the latest of 2010.
The Fiat Uno was not officially sold in China, so how it got here is a mystery. It could be an ex-embassy car.
The old plastic Fiat badge. The original color was blue. The Fiat Uno was available with a whole lot of different engines. Sadly, there were no engine badges on the car, so I can’t say for sure what was under the hood. The most common petrol engines were 1.1 and 1.4-liter units.
Note the telephone number on the headlight. This is from a person offering to buy the car. This was a common sight on older abandoned cars. On more expensive vehicles, you could see dozens of such telephone numbers, written or on small stickers. The ex-owner of this Uno didn’t make the call.