That’s all true. But somewhere in the 70’s smog hides a bit of a legend, mainly for all the wrong reasons. The Fiat Strada was one such car. It ought to have been brilliant except for one pretty dramatic reason. It oxidised before our very eyes.

You see, the Fiat Strada wasn’t merely a car. It was an idea. A bold, Italian, espresso-fuelled Eureka moment. And like many such ideas, it sounded brilliant at 2am but turned out to be utterly catastrophic by morning.

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Handbuilt by Robots

Do you remember the slogan “Handbuilt by Robots?” This alone should have been a bit of a warning. Think about it for just a second. It’s like saying “home-cooked by microwave”. Whilst it suggests modernity and swift results, it also suggests an alarming lack of human oversight. The phrase was meant to evoke cutting-edge automation. Instead, it sounded more like something that was assembled by a bunch of confused washing machines.

This was Fiat in the late 1970s and early 1980s, attempting to drag itself into the future by having its cars assembled by cutting-edge robots. Yes, the idea screamed “innovation” and lashings of what can only be described as boundless optimism, and it manifested in the form of the Strada.

The robotic assembly line was supposed to revolutionise production. Robots would weld with absolute precision, thereby raising build quality, improving reliability, and delighting customers. Instead, the robots apparently spent most of their time attaching panels at jaunty angles, leaving small but meaningful gaps for water and air to seep into the finished car. In other words, all the essentials for breeding the dreaded tin worms by the bucketful. And boy did those nasty little worms enjoy munching away at the poor old Strada.

Visually, the Fiat Strada is very distinctive. It looks like someone took a normal hatchback and then appointed a particularly ambitious geometry teacher to add some of the details. As a result, there were odd angles everywhere, oddly shaped door handles and some random circular motifs that seemed to have been applied purely as an afterthought.

To be fair, Italian design houses have given us masterpieces in the form of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Alfas. Things that still make our hearts sing but often cause our bank managers to despair. But the Strada looked like it had been designed during a power cut. Even its bumpers were excessively large, plastic things, but somehow they managed to look oddly integrated.

Pièce de résistance

Now we arrive at the Fiat Strada’s pièce de résistance. Corrosion.

Of course, most cars eventually succumb to the dreaded tin worm. It’s just part of the natural order of things. A bit like taxes. But the Strada didn’t wait around like most cars; it treated rust not as a long-term possibility, but as an inbuilt factory default. There are tales, once whispered in smoke-filled 70s pubs, of brand-new Stradas sitting in storage compounds dissolving before they were even registered. Before their owners had even had the chance to fully regret their purchases. People would trot off to collect their shiny new Italian hatchbacks, only to find that they were already auditioning for new roles as colanders. Panels bubbled, seams bloomed, and structural integrity became more of a concept than a physical reality. The Strada wasn’t so much a car as an ongoing chemistry lesson.

However, the driving experience was surprisingly good. The Strada was actually a pretty good car to drive because it was light, nimble and very responsive in that distinctly Italian way. The engines, whilst not exactly volcanic, were certainly pretty willing. Even the ride was decent, with the steering having a positive feel about it. As a driving experience, there was very little not to like. This should have been an excellent car, and in many ways, it was.

But driving a Strada did require a particular mindset. You had to accept that while you were enjoying a spirited run down a country road, parts of the car were returning to the earth. It was a race against entropy.

Precision engineering

Let’s return to those robots because they deserve their own chapter in this tragic tale. Automation was supposed to be the future. It was about precision engineering, creating more precision engineering in a utopian rather than a dystopian way. However, instead, the Strada’s production line seemed to demonstrate that robots, when left unsupervised, develop a mischievous streak. Panel gaps varied, trim pieces appeared to have been fitted by someone wearing oven gloves, and the overall finish suggested that the robots had, at some point, forgotten their brief and started improvising.

When the Strada launched, there was genuine excitement. Here was something modern. It was different, and it was Italian.

Then, reality set in. Buyers began to notice the rust, the iffy build quality and a general sense that their car might not make it to its first MOT without needing some serious welding.

And yet, these cars had “character.” This isn't just a nice way of saying that they were terminally flawed yet oddly endearing. They really were all of that. Other cars looked a bit dull, but the Strada just didn't. For a boxy hatchback, it looked quite sporty. That's an achievement in itself!

Today, the Fiat Strada occupies a curious place in automotive history. It wasn’t a success in the conventional sense. It didn’t dominate sales charts or redefine its class. It didn’t really even survive at all in the conventional sense, as a VW Golf or a Ford Fiesta did. Instead, it left an impression. The Fiat Strada’s legacy stands as a monument to ambition, to the idea that you can leap boldly into the future with robots and innovation and still metaphorically trip over your own shoelaces.

There's something rather lovable about that, because the Strada tried. It really did. It reached for modernity and progress, striving for a brave new world of highly automated production. It just happened to do so with metal that somehow dissolved at the first hint of light drizzle.

The Strada didn’t fade away like so many other mediocre cars. It didn’t silently disappear into scrapyards after years of faithful service. Nope. It rusted in spectacular fashion. It turned decay into a defining feature and, in doing so, it achieved something amazing. It became unforgettable. Because in a world of bland, competent and utterly forgettable hatchbacks, the Strada dared to be different. It even dared to be flawed.

It was the world’s first actively biodegradable car, even though this was completely by accident.

So, for its sheer, unapologetic, oxidising audacity, we should probably salute the Fiat Strada, but let's do so from a suitably safe distance. Just in case something important drops off and lands on our toes.