Talk:Fiat 126

There is a problem with the link on the cinquecento.

What's that Soviet steel rust scandal ? Ericd 21:25, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * A rumour that has as much validity as the "Hellenic Quest" urban legend. So far, I have NEVER seen the slightest evidence for it, however it keeps being propagated even by so-called "prestigious" newspapers and magazines. I wouldn't be surprised if this claim was part of That's Life! presenter Esther Rantzen's and tabloid Daily Mirror's libelous campaign of the early '80s. See the July 2007 issue of Classic & Sports Car magazine for a good debunking of this ridiculous myth. Urban legends and false statements have no place in Wikipedia, since they are unfounded. Elp gr (talk) 10:37, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The picture is crap, someone get a proper picture of a 126, preferably one WITH wheels.

Merge
It definitely should be merged with Polski Fiat 126p - it was the same car. Pibwl &larr;&laquo; 20:09, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Polglish
The chapter Political connotation is a bit Polglish, not written in proper English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.114.146.98 (talk) 16:50, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Subject, Fiat 126, not Polish history
The article talks about the Polski Fiat too much, and there is a separate article for that. It's all very nice that the blasted thing was called a Maluch, but that was not the Fiat 126 we have here in Italy. As for the 'bambino' remark: in my native Holland the car was marketed as the Fiat 126 Bambino P4, where P stood for Personal because you can actually cram 4 people into it. Maybe someone can find a source for that, I have it out of a book. Yes, the car is too small for that long name, I know :-) RvK, Rende (CS) Italy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.3.119.8 (talk) 16:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Horse Power should be added. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.53.232.153 (talk) 21:53, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * What horse power? :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Azarien (talk • contribs) 00:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Length
120 inches seems a bit long if the wheelbase is 72. Could someone check whether the length and/or wheelbase need correcting? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.7.83.3 (talk) 20:50, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe a section on humour would be welcome?
In the communist bloc there were a large amount of jokes about the (Polski) FIAT 126p micro-car and a good part of them concerned having sex or the lack thereof, within such a confined space, e.g.

- Of all cars, only the Fiat 126 received Pope John Paul II's blessing, but why? - Because it is impossible to fornicate in such a small space!

- Maternity ward nurse tells pregnant woman in labour: For best comfort, position your body similar to how the baby was conceived. - Women: Right foot in the glove compartment, left leg through the door window?

The Fiat 126 also had a reputation for often being driven by ladies, with corresponding jokes that made fun of the lesser sex's lacking chaffeur abilities. 82.131.210.163 (talk) 14:29, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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Hungarian nickname translations
I don't like the English translation of the Hungarian nicknames. I'm a native speaker of Hungarian, who has been living in the USA for 17 years. "Kispolszki" doesn't really mean "Little Polish" as that would be "Kis Lengyel", Lengyel being the Hungarian word for Polish. In fact the Hungarian nickname uses the foreign (to Hungarians) name "Polszki" with phonetic Hungarian spelling. I would translate it as "Little Polski". In fact, as a child, I didn't even know "Polszki" meant "Polish" (Lengyel). To me, Polszki was the car.

Similar translation problem exists with the name "Kispolák", which should be translated, frankly, as "Little Polack", as polák is basically an ethnic slur in Hungarian, just like "Polack" in English (maybe not quite as derogatory, but it is hard to tell).

I'll wait for input here, and I'll make the changes if there is no objection after a while. Csab (talk) 04:31, 12 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Hungarian is not widely understood or written in the more wiki-active corners of the anglosphere.  If you check the number of people who looked at the Fiat 126 page over the last year and try and infer from that how many of them (1) are likely to be reasonably fluent in Hungarian and (2) care enough about the Fiat 126 to look when they get a flag to indicate that someone has written something on the Fiat 126 talk page .... well, I suspect you may get to a number comfortably <1.   According to a wiki-tool which I am (very cautiously) inclined to trust, this Fiat 126 talk page received 12 hits in the last 90 days.   BUT if someone reading this knows I am wrong, feel free to contribute.   Meantime, if Csab is reasonably confident of what you write - and you appear to be - then please go ahead and improve those translations.   Accuracy and precision are good (even where they can often be elusive!)   If you "wait for input here"   .....  well, that often turns into an excuse for wandering off to get another coffee.   and then the phone goes.   and then .... nothing involving wikipedia.   Success Charles01 (talk) 08:34, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Rear-engined small cars still being made in Europe
Various Smart models are rear-engined, small and manufactured in Europe as of this posting, long after the last 126p. Unless I'm missing something here. CrinklyCrunk (talk) 13:07, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Engine details
The article is vague about engines.

The Original FIAT 126 had an air-cooled engine. In order to provide the boot space in a hatchback version the engine needed to be mounted sideways. It's entirely possible to do with the air cooled engine as the 500 Station Wagon showed.

However, for reasons unknown, the 126p/126bis was fitted with a completely new engine - a water cooled one. Which would not have been a problem had they mounted the radiator at the front so as the cars speed increased, so did the cooling. But no, the only cooling was a small rear mounted radiator with a tiny electric fan. The upshot was these engines seemed unable to go more than a couple of thousand kilometres without overheating and needing a new head gasket.

And again.

And again.

I would humbly submit that the real reason the cars never took off has nothing to do with "rear engines being out of favour" and everything to do with the fact that they were spectacularly unreliable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheNoBrainer (talk • contribs) 10:06, 15 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Your statement is incorrect. The water-cooled engine was only fitted in the 126 BIS, produced for only four years. The air-cooled 126p model enjoyed popularity long before and long after the BIS. --Krótki (talk) 18:51, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Why maluch
The entry seems to go to extents to explain why the car was called in Polish "maluch", i.e. the little one. The real reason is, however, that Poland at that time licensed two cars from FIAT: the more expensive (and bigger) FIAT 125 and the cheaper (and much smaller) FIAT 126. Accordingly, and quite naturally, these two vehicles were called "the big FIAT" (Polish: duży FIAT) and "the small FIAT" (Polish: mały FIAT), respectively.

These nicknames were used daily at large scale instead of the real brand names. Because FIAT 126 was much more popular (being cheaper), it got the popular name of endearment "maluch" (= the small one), which is directly derived from "mały FIAT", as opposed to "duży FIAT", i.e. FIAT 125.

By the way, the same happened before WW2: Poland then licensed two cars, FIAT 518 and FIAT 508. The former got to be called "the big FIAT" and the latter "the small FIAT". 84.10.23.2 (talk) 19:34, 4 July 2022 (UTC)