Fiat 500 Topolino: 90 years, international meeting in Turin

They arrived from all over Europe and even from New Zealand, all the way to Turin, to celebrate the company’s ninetieth birthday Fiat 500 Topolino. Over 130 teams of collectors and enthusiasts of the small Fiat car took part in the large international gathering “Topolino goes to the 90s”, organized by Mickey Mouse Autoclub Italia from 11 to 14 June 2026. The appointment, included in the calendar dedicated to 60 years of ASIis a tradition for “Topolinists”: on the round numbers of the anniversary of the official presentation, which took place on 15 June 1936, they meet in the city of Fiat to retrace the places that saw the birth of the Fiat 500 A, known by all as Topolino due to the resemblance of the front to the famous Disney mouse.

The car for everyone

—

Designed with the aim of mass-motorising Italians, at the request of Mussolini, the 500 A (1936) and its subsequent models 500 B (1948) and 500 C (1949) were produced until 1955. In the following years, they remained a constant presence on Italian roads, and also abroad, before becoming jewels loved today by thousands of collectors from all over the world. In Turin, in the static exhibition of Piazza Vittorio Veneto (Saturday, June 13), there was a 500 A purchased in 1936 by a Swedish gentleman, who then hid it in a barn at the start of World War II, where it remained, forgotten, until 2019. The model, now owned by a collector, is original, including the 569cc engine. By choice it has never been restored, it bears the signs of its ninety years more than others in impeccable condition, but it fully embodies the philosophy of the Topolino Autoclub Italia: “beautiful, not so beautiful, as long as you use them”. And continue to carry them around in Italy and around the world.

a global passion

—

Indeed, by plane from New Zealand (with an Italian Topolino on loan), and by road from Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, France, Hungary, Germany, the United Kingdom, and from all over Italy, the “Mickey Mouse fans” brought a spectacular mix of models. To the aforementioned 500 A of 1936, the versions built abroad (under Fiat license in Poland by Polski Fiat, in France by Simca, in Austria by Steyr-Puch, in Germany by Nsu-Fiat Neckar) and for racing, and the splendid Gardener four-seater, with the sides covered with ash and masonry strips. “There was a surplus of workers who worked the wood, because before the war the car bodies were made of wood”. So, to give work to these skilled workers, Fiat created a Topolino in the style of a station wagon Woody American, then re-proposed with a bodywork entirely in sheet metal as Gardener Belvedere.

on pilgrimage

—

Like the wooden Giardiniera, the Belvedere was very successful, and became famous as “the priests’ car”, because it was chosen by many country parish priests in the 1950s for their travels. “This is why I like to think I came here on a pilgrimage” explains an English enthusiast, who arrived in Turin with his personal Belvedere. With a maximum speed of 80 km/h, zero comfort and no safety features, the journey from England is not easy. “In 1986 I came here driving, it took me four days”, he explains, “this time I put it on a trolley”. Another Mouse fan from Lucerne did the same for the outward journey, “but we will return in three stages, passing through Ivrea”. His Topolino belonged to his grandmother, and he keeps a photo of it on his dashboard in a magnetic frame that says, in German, “think of me, and drive carefully”. The 500 B owned by Mario Esposito of the Topolino Autoclub Italia in Bologna, however, belonged to a dear friend of his, who bequeathed it to him in 1964. Since then he has participated in rallies “at least once a year, with many friends from all over the world”. By now, he says, everyone knows each other. And if it weren’t for the fans who came to immortalize the show with the smartphonesseeing so many Mickey Mouses parading away from Piazza Vittorio, with their roofs open and cardboard suitcases on the roof rack, one might feel like they were still in post-war Italy. Time has passed, but 90 years later, this “big little car” remains everyone’s car.