You may never have heard of the Pininfarina Azzurra, but you most likely know the Fiat 124 and 2000 Spiders. You may also recall that Fiat ended its production of the roadsters after the 1983 model year at the time it ended US sales of all its cars.
Enter Pininfarina, which not only was doing vehicle design but had been producing the coachwork for the Fiat roadsters. Rather than lose that business, Pininfarina took over full production of the vehicles for two years, with sales in the US through Malcolm Bricklin’s distribution system.
The Pick of the Day is one of those Pininfarina-produced vehicles, a 1985 Fiat Pininfarina Azzurra, being advertised on ClassicCars.com by its private owner in Branford, Connecticut.
Azzurra is the Italian word for azure, as in the bright blue color of the sky above the beach. However, the cars came in a variety of colors.
“The build quality on these final cars is known to be quite good,” the seller notes in an advertisement with precious little information about the car or its history.
“This example has been fully reconditioned both underneath and outside, in addition to new suspension, clutch, brakes, and tires. Ready to get in and drive.”
In the vehicle details that follow the single paragraph of the vehicle description, we learn that the car has its original engine and a manual transmission. The engine would be a 1,995cc inline 4-cylinder rated originally at 102 horsepower, with 110 pound-feet of torque at 3,000 rpm. Pininfarina was installing 5-speed manuals, though a 3-speed automatic sourced from General Motors was optional.
According to the Standard Catalog of Imported Cars, standard equipment included a radio and air conditioning. It also reports the cars could hit 104 mph.
The odometer shows less than 101,000 miles. The car is being offered for $17,500. Perhaps ironically, that asking price is just $10 more than Pininfarina dealers were asking in 1985 for a brand new Azzurra with an automatic gearbox.
To view this vehicle on ClassicCars.com, see Pick of the Day.
The best version was the Turbo but the dealer I worked for in Santa Fe had a hard time giving them away.
Hi,
Likely worth pointing out whether this is a 1985.5 as this last hurrah of six months production had about 124 changes including rack and pinion steering.
Pretty car.
Ran great but rusted out faster