An Amazing Photo Of An Amazing Car: Cold Start

Look at that picture up there – it’s fantastic, isn’t it? It’s a bit chaotic, but there’s also a kind of visual rhythm to it, and of course there’s all the colors and then the madness of the situation itself, driving right into a table-dense caféso someone can hand you a Coke in your tiny car, a car so diminutive that without getting up from his damn seat that dude can pass you that Coke from the passenger’s side. The car is pretty great, too: a Vignale Gamine.

I mostly just wanted to share that amazing old picture with you but since that Gamine is right there, we should start your day by discussing the Gamine, at least a bit. It’s an interesting little car, made from 1967 to 1970, a car whose entire purpose is just hey, this could be fun. It’s essentially a Fiat 500 re-bodied by Vignale, with a body design sort of reminiscent of the old Fiat 508 Balilla, especially in the front end/grille design, which on the Gamine was a fake, as the air-cooled inline-twin engine was at the rear.

The little Gamine looked sporty-ish, but the 500 was only really intended to be a city car, so at full tilt that 21 horsepower engine is only going to get you going 55, maybe 60 mph with a tailwind, a downhill grade, and either some fierce determination or some strategically-executed farts for extra thrust.

The taillights, license plate light, and louvers on the rear decklid are the only real tells that this is based on a Fiat 500, well, maybe the overall size as well. The Vignale-designed body is genuinely charming, and really has the feel of a ’30s-era roadster.

None of those are large cars, and the Gamine still looks small among them. I also like that “roll” bar behind the seats, which looks about as strong as the towel holder in your bathroom.

But who cares about roll bars? The Gamine was fun and stylish, almost like a fashion accessory, and was often shown in ads in that context, not too different than picking out just the right bag to go with your outfit, only this was a car:

I mean, it looks great, I can’t argue with that. Look at that top, though; those huge plastic side curtains were said to be noisy, flappy disasters at speeds above 45 mph, but without them there was a good chance of the whole roof flying off, or at least reviewers of the time suggested it felt like that.

Also, what the hell is “Aquascutum?” that sounds like something that, should you find yourself discharging any, should be your signal to go to a doctor immediately.

How can you not have a blast doing anything in this little kook? That guy could be heading to jury duty, but he’s going to have a micro-vacation on the way there, because that’s what the Gamine does. It’s all it does, and that’s just perfect.

This image is from a German brochure, and even though the Gamine is very Italian, I feel like the designers really wanted it to be British. That background definitely seems to hint at the Union Jack, even if it’s not, and the driver’s tweedy getup screams British, too. They’re pushing that British mod-’60s thing so hard here, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because Mini didn’t make a convertible at the time? I know some outside companies did, but still.

That same brochure also has some good shots of the interior – which is really almost an exterior interior, it’s so open – and a shot of that ravenous 499cc engine.

Also great is how neither the hood nor engine lid seems to open how you’d expect. That frunk lid puts the Gamine in the same category as the rear-engined Skodas that have that grand piano-style of trunk lid hinging.

The whole point of the Gamine was to make something whimsical and fun, and yet also pretty usable for most city car stuff, and they did just that, I think. Of course, these never sold well, and those poor sales sometimes get blamed for being one of the things that caused Vignale to hit hard times and ended up getting sold to De Tomaso. But that eventually helped lead to the De Tomaso Pantera, so we can’t be that mad.

s