this is a Fiat won 2-6 in fact it's my
very own Fiat won 2-6 and in this video
I'll show you around it I'm gonna
explain why I bought it
and how much I paid for it and tell you
the reasons why I think this is one of
the coolest cars in the world
the Fiat 126 was built in Italy between
1972 and 1973 but is also built under
license in Poland from 1973 until 2000
and in Italy they made about 1 million
of these things but in Poland they built
3.3 million were seen as modern compared
to the other things you could get in
Poland at the time to actually buy all
of these you needed approval from the
government and then you'd have to wait
about two years because the waiting list
was so long and that meant that people
as soon as they bought their cars it
often sell them the next day at twice
the price now this particular car is
actually one of the Polish one two sixes
and it can tell it apart from the
Italian one because it has Polsky Fiat
from the badge on the front and one two
6p and the badge on the back it also has
a slightly higher ride height and orange
indicator repeaters on the doors and
made the skin the fear one T six is
pretty much identical mechanically to
the 500 that it replaced it's super
super simple dead easy to work on and
the spring for the front suspension is
just a metal bar that connects the two
wheels assistance aid how basic this
thing is compared to modern cars it's
it's the complete polar opposite another
thing that's interesting is it's got all
round drum brakes but they did improve
them in 1980 to make them a little bit
stronger and at the safety feature added
in 1980 were some hazard warning lights
yes huge safety gains there I must say
now this car has the chrome bumpers
which are most sought after yeah bumpers
which was introduced in 1984 but really
just does not look as good welcome to
the inside of the post keep it and yes
luxurious it certainly is not now we'll
give it this it has soft touch material
on the dash what you don't actually gain
quite be modern cars but the rest of it
is very very basic and very very Spartan
you've got exposed metal under here and
screw heads that you can
attach your body on and cut yourself the
steering wheel is made out of the
cheapest plastic I have ever felt and
it's got just two spokes then you've
just got a single speedometer it does
have an odometer on it which says 15,000
kilometers though that could be 150 mm
or 250 mm I have no way of knowing then
there's a fuel gauge which we'll get
back to you've got banker switches there
for the lights the rear heated screen
and there's all important hazard warning
lights whoo then there's this button
here which I'll talk more about in a bit
and here we have the original stereo for
the car which is just tuned into Poland
I think and you have a single speaker
down there that it plays through yeah
yeah yeah that's about all it receives
it's a bit of a shame because you do
want the stereo to work because this car
is so noisy but it has no soundproofing
I mean look at the headliner it's just a
bit of carpet up there it's really
really basic now one of the main reasons
I wanted this car was for its engine
because its rerouted and it's air called
and I couldn't afford an air called for
show yeah this was the only alternative
I could think of so the car started off
with a 600cc two-cylinder air-cooled
unit which is what this has yeah it has
23 horsepower 43 Newton meters of torque
but yeah funny little engine that makes
a funny little noise and doesn't deliver
much power the 1 to 6 maybe a small car
but it does have a modicum of
practicality so there's some very thin
door bins yeah wouldn't it important in
there though and little place there
which is perfect for a mobile phone
company they thought about that back in
1972 also you can slide the front seats
forwards and backwards that's where you
can put them backwards as well yeah you
can and you can recline them almost low
enough you can lie down and have a sleep
in this car which probably would be
handy when it breaks down you need to
wait for someone to come and rescue you
right let's have a look underneath the
bonnet at the 1 to 6 oh yes you have a
front boot with an occasion amount of
space Oh in here
spares some paint for touching up
there's a Jerry can I explain that in a
bit there's a warning triangle in here
we've also got a spare wheel a full-size
spare wheel but that's because the
wheels are very small you've got your
battery down there which isn't a very
good battery the capacity is quite small
on it and when you combine that with an
alternator that really doesn't charge
very well quite often you come to this
thing and it needs pump starting there's
some other funny things about it for
instance the covers for the lights of
which is supposed to protect the back of
them keep falling off and then there's
the wiring which is just underneath this
mat and it's an absolute mess as you can
see there is not a lot of room here in
the back of a Fiat 1 to 6 yeah this was
used as a main family car for the Polish
so the golf on long drive your holidays
in these things fully packed fully
loaded with the family in it and then
often have suitcases piled up on the
roof as well completely crazy
interesting thing is that the people in
the back of the car can actually control
the cars heating because there's a
little switch there which you move
around to alter the amount of airflow
going from the engine into the cars
cabin it takes a long time to get hot
though I can tell you there are a few
funny features on this one t6 that you
do have to get used to so if you want to
use the parking lights you press this
switch forward and then you'll have the
lights on without the keys in the
ignition
however when you're driving and you want
the lights on you have to press it down
that way and then you have the side
lights on and then you use this stalk to
go into normal beam and then press it
again to go into high beam so now that's
funny is the indicators so when you put
the indicator on you get a flash up
there in the speedo but then it kind of
disappears and you don't see it again
you're not sure if the indicators are
working and that happens in both
directions it's a little bit frustrating
but totally common on this car then
there's this little button up here which
is for the windscreen washer it's not
connected to a motor it's connected to a
hand-operated pump so you just press it
and it squirts the water at the
windscreen and then use this lever to
off
the windscreen wipers and they're not
very good as you can see you can put it
on to intermittent wipe and then you
change the speed of the intermittent
wipe using this little dial here this is
actually the original dial what happened
is someone broke into this car and the
only thing they stole was the little
knob off there bizarre
however I've got a replacement that's
what it should look like though I had to
buy it with the whole assembly which is
annoying
another thing that's annoying about this
car is the fact that it absolutely loves
to rust I mean you give it all for
chance and leave you out in the wet and
it will transform itself into a pile of
iron oxide dust now you have to fill it
with rust proofing material basically a
load of special Tory goop which just
stops the water getting through to the
metal hits it here on the sill that's
actually leaked out of the doors and
ends up on your clothes but it's the
only way to stop this car just
disintegrating another thing that gets
on my nerves
is this the heater ventilation system
because I'm not entirely sure how it
works so this knob the pull in and out
I think distributes the air either out
of these vents here or out up against
the windscreen and then there's one that
has like a blue circle on it which I'm
guessing is for cold air at the front
when you're driving along but I'm not
entirely sure because it doesn't seem to
do anything another thing that I find
super frustrating about this car is the
random bits of it just drop off
especially the window winders whenever
you shut the door it's all demonstrate
now
finally then let's take this silly
little Fiat for a drive now you don't
turn it on using the key instead you
pull levers down by the handbrake so the
one the left is for the chose he put
that on when he called starting then he
pull up on the other one to engage the
starter motor should rattle into life
okay I just turn that back the choke
doesn't need to be on that much right
let's drive it so this car has a
straight cut first gear so you do notice
it whine but also there's no synchromesh
on first but all other four kids do have
sync Ramesh's unlike on the old Fiat 500
which you had to double de-clutch
otherwise it'd end up grinding the gears
together so yeah this is a noisy little
car as you can probably tell and it's
quite bouncy though in some ways it
means it can deal with potholes quite
well you just fly over them because it's
so light this thing only weighs 600
kilos the brakes are interesting so they
do nothing and then they suddenly lock
up so you've gotta be careful not to
skid no abs here vote no abs all safety
systems at all the steering there's no
power assistance do so when you're
moving out at junctions it can feel a
little bit heavier than you might be
used to but once you're driving no
problem at all and here's one of my
favorite things about this car is that
it's so narrow just 1.3 meters you can
basically fit through the gap of those
smaller speed ups like now yeah you
don't have to slow down it's sometimes
hard to tell what speed you are doing
because the speedo is in kilometers an
hour there's some little red dots which
actually show you when you're supposed
to change up a gear but they correspond
pretty much two miles an hour so we've
got 20 miles an hour 30 miles an hour
and one 450 which is about this cars top
speed and believe me if there's 100
miles an hour because it's just so
flimsy another thing I like about this
car is the turning circle it is awesome
you can do
turn this thing on a penny look at that
meaning roundabouts and no problem at
all I love that about it the other thing
I love is that people just stop and
stare at this thing because it's so
unusual and so very very cute also the
Polish lorry drivers will honk their
horns and respect this little car
because they recognize it actually in
Poland it was nicknamed mallow which
means little one and eventually that
became its official name because
everyone just called it that look at
this round corners I mean it's like a
little go car and it feels so pure you
know driving today feels nothing like
this you really do feel like you're
controlling a mechanical thing it is
super fun and another great thing about
it is it's so easy to park I mean you
can just Park it dead simple anywhere
there's always a space for it so it's
only 3 meters long fact look at this
here's a little parking space here this
would not be right in fact I'm doing you
each so you can see it but well you
almost got quite by those guys you do
not want to get crashed into in this car
because you are toast
ok well pop the curve doesn't man up
right see this parking space here yeah
that's not very big but it's big enough
for a Fiat 1 to 6 and because it's
left-hand drive this car it's super easy
me see what the curve is didn't really
match if you make a hash of things
because even if you're at a wonky angle
the car so narrow that it just doesn't
stick out and of course you can see
right the back window
that was impressive parking look at that
calmly laugh it in that girl that's
insanely good right let's get out of
here
super easy now one of the things that's
a bit weird about this car is the fuel
gauge so it reads opposite so when it
says it's empty is actually four and
when it's full it's empty
and there's no in-between try to fill up
cost little over ten quid it's got such
a small tank I don't know what the
economy is I've never measured it but
it's probably quite cheap there is one
problem with this car though the
emissions aren't great though as a
result this car is not exempt from the
ultra low emission zone charge and
that's extending out to Greater London
which will include where I live which
means if I want to drive this car it's
gonna cost twelve pounds a day which is
about the saving cost to fill it with
fuel which is just bonkers anyway so
other than that it's called super cheap
you know it cost me 200 quid a year in
insurance it cost me about two to put in
tax to buy it it was 1,500 quid and
actually a Polish friend found it for me
and then he spent another thousand
pounds having it done up bias specialist
so the pain work was all done any rust
was removed the brakes were sorted out
it was given a full service new tires
put on it so that took the price to two
thousand five hundred pounds they're not
gonna drive it all the way back from
Poland to England which would have been
a nightmare in this little thing at 50
miles an hour and the noise and the lack
of comfort horrendous fortunately my
mate managed to find someone who's
willing to put on the back of a trailer
and bring different Poland to my house
for just 200 quid which was a bargain
and I think overall this car is a bit of
a bargain it's so unique so quirky
everyone that looks at it seems to love
it makes people smile and it makes me
smile as well even the horn
it's just silly I hope you enjoyed this
video on my fear 1 to 6 and if you'd
like to see more on it let me know what
kind of videos you want to see in the
comments below also let me know if you'd
like me to do a video on my supercharged
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