Fiat 1100 B Giardinetta Viotti

The Fiat 1100 B Giardinetta built by Viotti in 1949 was a two-door estate car on Fiat 1100 B mechanical foundations, with timber-and-metal coachwork designed by Mario Revelli di Beaumont. The surviving example identified as chassis 1100B*315974 combines the compact Fiat platform with an extended rear passenger and luggage compartment. Its body retains the wooden treatment and divided windscreen associated with this Giardinetta configuration.

Revelli’s Giardinetta concept had entered production with Viotti from 1946, several years before the construction of this car. The programme developed through different chassis and body variants. The 1949 1100 B therefore belongs to that wider sequence, while its particular equipment and delivery history concern chassis 1100B*315974. Viotti constructed the body; Revelli’s design role was separate from the Fiat mechanical manufacture.

The estate layout extended the enclosed body behind the front seats, with the timber members and contrasting panels forming visible parts of the sides and rear compartment. Its two-door arrangement differed from a conventional four-door saloon, while the split windscreen retained a pronounced central division. The surviving car’s appearance combines the visible wooden sections with the metal front body, rather than carrying a wholly wooden exterior.

Published descriptions of this example identify an Ultraflex bumper attributed to Brunsig, a Volcambio Massarotti reverse-gear device and a Jalt steering lock. These named accessories form part of the account of this car’s equipment. They are not established as standard fittings on every Viotti Giardinetta, and the surviving descriptions do not provide a complete specification for their individual mechanisms.

The same history records delivery on 29 July 1949 to the Istituto Tecnico Agrario Governativo Stanga in Cremona. That dated association places the car with an agricultural technical institute, although it does not establish the purpose for which the institute used it. No purchase amount is recorded with the delivery.

Later accounts have described the car as one of very few surviving examples. A complete production register and an independently reconciled survival count have not been recovered, so neither a fixed total nor the often-repeated figure of two survivors is established. The surviving chassis number identifies this particular 1100 B independently of the differently named Fiat 1100 E Giardinette built during the subsequent model period.