Coys Auction - Automoto D‘Epoca
Padova Fiera
Padova, Italy
Saturday 24th October 2009
Admission by catalogue only - admits two
Registration Number: EU registered Chassis Number: 610760
Italy‘s location on the Mediterranean Sea meant innumerable beachfront cities and resorts. There was a brisk trade in beach buggy conversions of regular cars by the many specialist coachbuilders throughout Italy at the time. One such specialist was Ghia (now owned by Ford), who created the Jolly conversions on Fiat‘s 500, 600, Multipla and Giardinera platforms.
Known at home as La Spiaggina, a word difficult to translate but something like "beach-ette", the Fiat beach-buggy was marketed worldwide as the Jolly, meaning "joker" in Italian, but also meaning something light, fun, funny and pretty in several languages.
The car was quite expensive - $1760.00 compared to $998.00 for a standard 600 - and was bought by the rich and famous such as Aristotle Onassis and Yul Brynner as yacht tenders, gol