Fiat 4 HP

Fiat 4 HP at a glance

Ceirano, Faccioli and the founding of Fiat

The car's roots lie with the Ceirano brothers, Giovanni, Ernesto and Matteo, who did much to start the Italian motor industry. Giovanni Ceirano co-founded Ceirano GB & C in 1898 and began building the Welleyes car in 1899, to a design by the engineer Aristide Faccioli. In July 1899 the Welleyes plant and patents were sold to Giovanni Agnelli. FIAT itself was founded in Turin on 11 July 1899 by a group of about ten Piedmontese aristocrats with an interest in motoring. Production of the 3½ HP began at the end of that year.

English Wikipedia's article on Ceirano GB & C dates the company to October 1888 in one place and October 1898 in another. It names Giovanni Battista Ceirano, Emanuele di Bricherasio, Attilio Calligaris, Pietro Fenoglio and Cesare Goria Gatti among the founders. It first made bicycles under the Welleyes brand. Faccioli was hired in 1899 to design a small two-seater. The Welleyes car was presented on 30 April 1899 with two horizontal cylinders and a two-speed leather-belt drive, while the Fiat that followed had three speeds and chain drive.

The Ceirano family went on to found several more Turin makers:

Giovanni Battista Ceirano became Fiat's agent for Italy but left within a year to set up the brothers' new firm. Italian Wikipedia also recalls that the first Italian car is usually credited to Enrico Bernardi of Verona, whose small petrol tricycle went into production with Miari & Giusti in 1894. The early decades of the company are told in our history of Fiat.

Engine and drive

The two-cylinder engine lay horizontally and lengthwise at the rear. It had side valves; the exhaust valves were worked by a camshaft and the inlet valves opened automatically by suction. Lubrication was total-loss: an oiler sent oil through copper pipes to the bearings, and it dropped into the sump without being recovered. The crank gear was exposed in an open, shell-shaped crankcase.

The two sources give different figures:

The "3½ HP" name therefore refers to the fiscal rating, while the "4 HP" name is used for the second batch, which Italian Wikipedia describes with a front-mounted radiator. A coil radiator cooled the engine: early cars had it under the seat, later ones ahead of the front axle.

Power went through a leather cone clutch to a three-speed gearbox with a freewheel but no reverse, then by chain and a bevel-gear differential to the rear wheels. With 3.1 kW for 680 kg, the car had about 4.6 kW per tonne, or more than 200 kg for every kW. The power-to-weight calculator shows how far modern cars have moved from that.

Chassis and body

The frame was made of wooden beams reinforced with steel. Both axles were rigid: the front on double semi-elliptic leaf springs, the rear on semi-elliptic springs. The front wheels were smaller than the rear ones, on low-pressure tyres of 580 × 55 mm in front and 670 × 55 mm at the rear. Ground clearance was 250 mm.

Braking was basic. Both systems acted on the rear wheels only: a pedal brake on the half-shafts and a hand brake on the wheels. The four-seat vis-à-vis body, with two passengers facing the driver, was built by the Turin coachbuilder Marcello Alessio. Italian Wikipedia credits the car with climbing gradients of 8–10%.

Fuel use and performance in context

The 4 HP used 8 litres per 100 km while carrying four people at no more than 35 km/h, or about 2 litres per 100 km for each seat. Our fuel economy converter turns the figure into about 35 mpg (UK) or 29 mpg (US). The top speed and gradient figures come from Italian Wikipedia and the period data it cites; no road test of the car is quoted in the sources.

Fiat 4 HP compared with other early cars

Set against the other pioneer cars on 1cars, the first Fiat came late but was already more powerful than the cars of the early 1890s. The table uses the figures from each car's Wikipedia articles:

Compared with the Benz Velo, the Fiat had a smaller two-cylinder engine but more power, and it was almost twice as fast. It was also more than twice as heavy, with its wooden frame and four-seat body. The De Dion-Bouton Vis-à-vis reached the same 35 km/h with a single cylinder and less than half the weight. The light voiturette from Puteaux was also built in far larger numbers: 1,500 to 2,970 against Fiat's 24 or 26.

Surviving cars

At least four Fiat 4 HP cars survive, according to both Wikipedia articles:

A film by the Heritage HUB channel shows a 3½ HP on the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run.

• To see one in Italy: the Centro Storico Fiat and the Turin automobile museum each hold a car.
• To see one abroad: Beaulieu in England and Dearborn in the USA.
• For context: the Ceirano Welleyes of 1899, the design it came from, is shown in the photo below.

Current and past Fiat models are listed in the Fiat catalogue, and more early cars are in our classic cars section.