Magda Konieczna

Can you spot the family resemblance?

appeared in The Globe and Mail Sept. 2, 2009

Now that the European Union has approved Fiat's control of Chrysler, the Turin-based manufacturing giant is free to make good on its promise to provide the fading Detroit star's salvation.

With Chrysler's help, Fiat plans to return to the North American market after a 25-year absence with a vehicle that is small, fuel-efficient and designed in the spirit of such classic remakes as the new Beetle and Mini Cooper.

The revamped Fiat 500 - better known as the Cinquecento - captures the ethos of the archetypal people's car while reshaping it for the 21st century. Hip, practical and eco-friendly, it benefits from a liberal dose of Italian style of the sort that has made the Vespa the go-to scooter for young urbanites.

The Cinquecento is expected to arrive in 2011 and, if Europe's reception is any indication, it could take the continent by storm.

As The Globe and Mail's Greg Keenan reported this week, the little car is especially crucial to the future of Chrysler Canada, which has slipped to eighth spot in sales, barely ahead of Volkswagen.

The irony of all this excitement is not lost on Poland, home of the father of the new Cinquecento. For almost 30 years, the Fiat 126p was a staple of the Communist era, although it was neither hip nor practical - and in no way eco-friendly.

The 126p arrived in 1972 after Poland's government bought the licence from Fiat, and was produced until 2000 in several factories, including one that now makes the new Cinquecento. It weighed 600 kilograms, measured just over three metres - 50 cm longer than a Smart Car and 50 cm shorter than the new Cinquecento - and was dubbed Maluch, or "little guy," a nickname so popular it became the official name in 1997.

Under communism, getting a car was the fulfilment of a dream - many people waited for years. But these days, the two-cylinder, four-gear Maluch evokes little warmth among Poles. Even 20 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, it's a symbol that reminds them of how they once lived on a shoestring. It harkens back to a time when meat was bought with ration cards and you waited years to get a car even if you'd saved enough cash.

As a result, the Maluch is disappearing from Polish streets - but it is not being forgotten.

BLESSED EVENT
It was solemn, as any religious ceremony. A priest in a black robe and gold stole delivered the blessing, spraying holy water on eager parishioners. A line formed and paraded past the holy man - a line of tiny, colourful, smelly, backfiring automobiles wrapping up a daylong parade of Maluchs that had drawn residents of tiny villages in western Poland to the roadside in wonder.

Just as East Germany's Trabant and Russia's Lada enjoy cult status around the world, there are Maluch fan clubs in Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania. Here the little guy is disappearing largely unmourned, but it also can be seen as a metaphor for Polish life.

For example, Poles are known for being innovative, but under the Communists the many prototypes their factories designed - a convertible, a pickup, an elongated version - never hit the market. In 28 years of production, the vehicle hardly evolved.

Today, however, modified Maluchs do everything from plowing snow (despite having a wimpy 23-horsepower engine), to hauling trailers laden with mushrooms from forest to market (the car is so light it rarely gets stuck in the mud), and even taking part in monster truck shows.

"Tuning the Maluch became for many - especially young people, often from villages or small towns, for people with thin wallets but with big hearts, abilities and persistence - a passion," Aleksander Sowa writes in his book, Fiat 126p: The Giant Small Car. "There appeared thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Fiats that were one of a kind."

Legends abound of people building Maluchs completely from parts to circumvent the long wait. This was a highly profitable endeavour. The little Fiat was one of the few cars ever to double in value as soon as it was driven off the lot. People were willing to pay much more than sticker price on the black market. (These days, you can easily buy one for about $100.)

However, the car also was faulty, turning every owner into a mechanic (a foreigner visitor in the 1980s observed that all Poles had black hands), and long umbrellas became fashionable as a more elegant version of the stick many drivers used to jab the starter when the ignition didn't work.

Had North Americans been equally resourceful, perhaps Fiat would not have pulled out of the market in 1983, its reputation in tatters. (The old joke was that Fiat stood for "Fix it again, Tony.") The company licked its wounds until 2004 when Canadian Sergio Marchionne took over as chief executive officer, streamlining management and then engineering the hot remake of the Cinquecento.

The 126p was the successor to the original Fiat 500, and the first Polish factory to produce it opened on July 22, 1973 - a national holiday (even so, most 1970s Maluchs were made largely in Italy). In all, 3.3 million were sold, with the first ones costing 69,000 zloty - what an average worker earned in a year and a half.

MONGOLIA AND BACK
The last 1,000 cars came off the line as a limited "happy end" edition. But now, almost a decade later, still some Poles are anything but happy that the Maluch ended.

Last year, Rafal Labuz and a group of high-school friends in southern Poland drove in a four-Maluch convoy on a 17,500-kilometre round trip to Mongolia. Just as the Cinquecento bounced back to become Fiat's (and perhaps Chrysler's) salvation, they feel the Maluch should return from the dead.

"In the 1970s, the Maluch was a hit, a dream," says fellow traveller Tomasz Turchan. However, adds Mr. Labuz, "in the 1990s everyone wanted an Audi or a Rolls Royce. Maybe it's because of poverty: Everyone wanted a good car like you see in the movies."

Before leaving, the crew bought all the spare parts they could. "Some days we'd pack the tents and, after 10 or 15 minutes, you'd hear [on the CB radio]: 'Stop, my Maluch has problems,' " Mr. Labuz says. "And it would take two hours to fix. Some days it was starting to get dark when we were ready to go."

But the hassle was worth it.

"Today people get in their car on the highway and don't feel the distance; in the Maluch, you feel the passing countryside, you appreciate the world is huge and beautiful," Mr. Turchan explains.

"The Maluch has a soul. Other cars don't."

What kind of soul?

"A little one."

Canadian writer Magda Konieczna is working on a book about the news media.

Sidebar

Poles poke fun at themselves - and their cars

Q: Why does a Maluch not have a muffler?

A: No need - passengers sit with their knees over their ears.

Q: When does a Maluch attain top speed?

A: While it's being towed.

They also like to write songs - about their cars

One ditty by Communist-era singing star Andrzej Rosiewicz tells of a Maluch that falls for a Syrena (an even older Polish car, named for a mermaid) only to be told by her parents that he's too much of a runt.

And they needed I.D. to place an ad - due to a car

The policy was adopted after somebody upset Communist authorities by advertising anonymously for Maluchs claiming he'd turn them into go-karts.