1938 Fiat Drag Car

Story and photos by John Gunnell

Paul Zielsdorf’s A-Altered Fiat Topolino always causes quite a stir. The fibreglass copy of a ’38 Fiat 500 has a drag racing history that dates back to at least 1962. Amazingly, Paul found the car listed on eBay and the seller lived very close by. After a bit of hesitation, he bought it. After a little work, he had it back in its 1968 racing form, which is how he intends to keep it as long as he owns it. That might be forever, unless someone wants to trade him a Willys gasser for it.

Nineteen thirty-six was the first year of the Fiat 500, which arrived that June and was soon nicknamed the “Topolino.” In Italian, that meant “little mouse” or “mini mouse.” Fiat boss Giovanni Agnelli wanted a car that was cheap to build, cheap to operate, comfortable and practical. Dr. Antonio Fessia was put in charge of the project and the result was the world’s smallest four-cylinder, water-cooled, rear-wheel drive production car at a price of 8,900 lira.

The Series I Topolino sold well In Italy. Fuel was not cheap and plentiful, so the car’s 48 mpg fuel economy was a key selling point. Salon (sedan) and van models were offered, but the sunroof coupe was the most popular version. The car was essentially made for 12 years, but after the first 46,000 units or so were produced, the rear suspension was changed from quarter-elliptic springs and radius rods to more conventional semi-elliptic leaf springs. This occurred in 1938 and the cars with the upgraded design were called Series II models. All in all, 122,000 cars in the two series were built between 1936 and 1948.

Zielsdorf got his fibreglass replica in January 2008. It was offered by a man who lived only about two miles away. He had the opportunity to buy it and refused the man twice. He thought about it after his second refusal and called back about two hours later. “You know, it would fit in my garage, it’s not that big a car,” Paul said. “I got a little bit of space right here, so what the heck, I’ll buy it.”

The fibreglass Fiat body was probably sourced from Kellison.

Paul had picked up a 1962 Hot Rod magazine addressed to the seller. “Once I decided to buy, the car, I told him I had a magazine addressed to him from ’62,” said Paul. “Everything came together.” The two men knew a lot of the same people. In the end, it was a case of being in the right place at the right time.

Muscle Car Plus conducted a Q and A interview with Paul about his car:

MCP: What condition was it in?

Paul: The car basically was in the condition it is now with the exception that it was taken apart. The engine was upside down on the pavement. The oil pan was on it and there was a huge mouse nest in it. The heads were off it. The tranny was gone from the car. The body was intact and setting on the chassis. The hood was there. I guess all I had to do was kind of just reassemble it and try to pressure wash everything and clean it. It had not been cleaned or had anything done to it since probably it was taken apart in 1973. It bounced around storage facilities. It accumulated dust and I had to basically put it back together.

MCP: It seems like this car was in a lot of shows and races in the old days.

Paul: Yes, it did both big car show circuits. It did ISCA – International Show Car Assoc. in ’68 to ’73. They raced at the same time. They raced at least two full seasons, I believe ’72 and ’73. They were modestly successful showing it. They took third place overall in the competition class. I believe in ’73 in the show circuit. Racing it, they had mixed success. The car was a handful to drive. They had a couple of drivers. Either owner Mike Gish drove it or his nephew Dave Stroud. It wasn’t consistent. It was kind of every time they drove the car they MCP: What made you decide to buy the car? Because you’re a collector?

Paul: I love old cars and my goal in life was—and is—to have a nostalgic ’41 Willys gasser. I’m not sure, but this might be the closest I ever get to that. When I saw it and had the opportunity to buy it, I thought I’d better snap it up because I might never get closer than this to what I’d actually love to have as a dream car.

MCP: What reactions do you get when you take it out?

Paul: It’s split both ways. Half the people actually appreciate the car for being a vintage, “real deal” racing car and the other half don’t get it—don’t think it’s real. They think it might have been faked or they don’t think it had an actual racing history. They think it might just be something I put together as a tribute car.

MCP: Do you know of other fibreglass Fiat drag cars?

Paul: Yes, they were pretty common in the ‘60s. The Topolino was a popular car to use because it was so light. They ran in A Altered class. Somewhere I have the rules for 1965 or 1966 and they had to be less than 1600 lbs. and there weren’t many cars that were that light. So, the Fiat was a popular car to race.

MCP: Did someone supply these fibreglass Fiat bodies back in the day?

Paul: Yes. I can’t document this, but I was told that this is a

For stopping after a run, the car packs a drag chute at the rear.

Kellison fibreglass body. I tried to document that with the guys who were in the know, but I haven’t been able to prove it or disprove it.

MCP: You have pictures of two other survivors? Have you seen others?

Paul: No. I have not run across any Fiats other than those two that I saw at the Grove (Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wis.)

MCP: You pretty much know this history of your car from day one, right?

Paul: I know as much as I was told by Mike Gish, who owned and raced the car in the ‘60s. In 1962, when he was 12, he saw it for the first time. It was racing at the Grove. He says that it was yellow with a 348 Chevy V8 in it. It always raced at the Grove. One day in 1968 he was reading the Milwaukee State Journal (actually the Milwaukee Journal) and he saw an ad for a Fiat altered drag car. He knew immediately what it was because he had seen this car run at the Grove. He called and went to see it and it was the same car he had seen six or seven years prior. He bought it as, basically, a used car with no engine or transmission. He bought it from a place called Power Automotive in Kenosha, Wis. I don’t recall what he paid for it, but he brought it home and basically had Jim Luker of Magnum Racing Engines help him build a 301 small-block Chevy with Hilborn injection. That same engine with that same injection system is what they originally built for the car in 1968. They put it together and raced it in this fashion.

MCP: What do you see in the future for your car?

Paul: I want to continue to preserve the car and make minimal upgrades so it’s reliable and a car we can take to nostalgic racing events. It’s never going to be a car that will currently race or especially run in the 10s or 11s. That’s because of the safety things it’s lacking like an extra roll bar—or extra loop in the roll cage I should say. There’s a number of things that changed. It doesn’t have arm restraints or submarine belts and we’re not going to add them. We don’t want to alter the chassis or anything inside. If there’s a bolt-in thing that we need (in order) to race, that’s different, but otherwise we’ll preserve the car the way it is.

MCP: The seat belts are ex-military? Are there any changes inside at all?

Here’s the car taking off on one of its runs, but it’s no record setter today. Paul: The car has a 1957 “military spec” harness. The only thing inside the car I really changed was the transmission. Well, actually I had to add the transmission, because the car didn’t

have one. But it now has the same exact type of 1960 Chevy three-speed in it. The drive shaft is original to the car. There is a plate that covers the transmission to protect you somewhat from a transmission explosion. That was missing, but I duplicated it following Mike Gish’s instructions and his drawing of what it looked like. Other than that, the inside of the car is the way it was. It still has the original seat, original harness, original butterfly steering wheel, Corvair steering, Triumph Spitfire master cylinder and ’57 Corvette shifter. All that stuff is true to the car the way it was built in 1968.

MCP: The original engine was a bigblock 38 Chevy, right?

Paul: Yes, I think so. But I have absolutely no idea what year it was and I can’t even actually prove that the car had one. The idea that it had one is strictly from Mike Gish saying that when he was 12, he saw it with a “W” motor in it. When he bought it there was no engine or transmission or no motor mounts. So, we don’t have any real documentation that it was that way.

MCP: We heard that you drove it with no cooling system?

Paul: Yes, it has absolutely no cooling system whatsoever. There’s some water in the block and that’s it. It has a pretty short-lived running time when we’re driving it. After three or four minutes, it’s already getting pretty warm.

MCP: Rumor has it a lot of people tried to buy it. Do you hear about that?

Paul: I probably hear about that once at every show or one person at every show I go to seems to know about the car. They say they had the opportunity to buy the car and didn’t or that they tried to buy it and it wasn’t for sale at the time. Or I hear something to that effect. People knew about the car and weren’t able to obtain the car. So, there are a lot of interesting stories along those lines.

In the ‘0s, the car was in Champion Spark Plugs promo at an ICAS show. The entire front end of the car lifts off to get at the engine.