VIDEO: Driving at the Stelvio Pass in the Fiat 124 Spider!

[F30 101]

^ This video has a lot of behind the wheel action;

And Stunning visuals with unadulterated driving scenes;

 

Some information about the Stelvio Pass; 

- The Stelvio Pass is the 3rd highest (2758m) mountain pass in the Alps, but surely the most dramatic pass in Italy. 
- In fact Top Gear voted this ' The Best Driving Road ' back in 2008. 
- Stelvio pass can be accessed from both Switzerland & Italy. I started from the Italian side of the Pass, its supposedly more scenic, has faster corners giving liberty to actually push the car. 
- The road is too narrow to attempt an overtake, but yeah you can easily get around slow cyclists or 2 wheelers. 
- Overall i visited the Stelvio Pass on a Sunday (late afternoon/early evening) & got relatively less traffic than what i had read online. 
- The Stelvio Pass has about 48 hair pin turns so driving there is like Hard Right, accelerate in 1st to redline shift to 2nd (Wheelspin), accelrate in 3rd gear then brake for a Hard left, accelerate hard again, soon Hard Right & goes on... 
- All the turns are marked on the stones & sign boards like 46,47 & so on to help you know that if you have reached the top or not. 
- The car i chose for driving at the Stelvio Pass was the iconic Fiat 124 Spider. 

Fiat 124 Spider; 

- The 124 spider has a very 1960's style retro styling, but is a very unique car as though being an Italian sportscar it has a lot of Japanese engineering (based on the Mazda MX-5). 
- Strangely the styling, long bonnet, overhangs etc reminded me of the Dodge Viper. 
- 124 Spider is powered by the 1.4 Multi Air Turbo Petrol motor producing aprox 140bhp & 240nm & all the power goes to the Rear wheels (RWD).
- Above specifications only tell half the story as this roadster is light weight (1050kgs aprox) capable of doing the 0-100 km/h sprint in only 7.5 seconds. 
- Yes, it was a MANUAL TRANSMISSION 
- The M/T box wasn't the most slick shifting (specially downshifts) & while driving aggressively i did happen to grind gears (as seen in the video @ 3:30).
- The engine however peppy did suffer from turbo lag in such an mountain pass & hence my right hand was always busy shifting gears while filming the video. 
- Interestingly the 1.4 MultiAir Turbo was not that refined to be honest. 
- The low centre of gravity of the 124 aids in the handling is properly spot on & thats exactly what you would want on a mountain road like this.
- The tyres were thin 205's on 17" rims which were inducing oversteer easily as seen in the video. But overall even after breaking traction the rear end continued t behave predictably. 
- The roof (fabric) opens/closes easily within seconds but ' Manually '
- Loved the interiors.
- Doing the Stelvio Pass in an retro Italian Roadster was indeed a blissful feeling. 
- Overall the Fiat 124 Spider being a lightweight, quick, manual, RWD roadster was indeed a good recipe to have fun at the Stelvio Pass.

Edited July 28 by F30

[vikky1971 3]

@F30 you have taken a lot of initiative to make the video. The car performance and the scenery through out the video was excellent. I enjoyed the entire clip

[F30 101]

11 hours ago, vikky1971 said:

@F30 you have taken a lot of initiative to make the video. The car performance and the scenery through out the video was excellent. I enjoyed the entire clip

Hi Vikky, thanks for your appreciation. Yes this was a difficult video to make, but glad it turned out well & everyone's enjoyed watching it. 

Regards !