emilia

Emilia is my car, a FIAT 500, produced in February, 1970, up north in Torino. She’s the first and only car I’ve ever owned, and last year when she arrived filled with balloons, I instantly named her after an old girlfriend (a woman I guess I never really ever got over). Anyone that has ever owned a FIAT cinque cento knows that there has never been another car like her, the sound of the engine, the feel of the thing over cobble stone streets, the way you have to shift in a special way, the much beloved ‘doppietta’.

She’s the means I often use to explore the Salento, the piece of land I love like no other.

As a member of the Historical Automobile Club of Italy, I often talk about Emilia as though she were an old faithful and beloved mule: Those that keep their FIAT 500 in mint condition would never treat their cars like I do mine, as a means of transport, out tooling about the Salento.

Car snobs peel their top lips off their teeth over the fact that someone changed out her engine and steering wheel in the mid-80′s, that she’s not the original colour, that her wheel hubs are actually that of the FIAT 126, a much easier to maintain model.

I too have made a few augmentations: Her stereo is powerful, with a four-speaker system. It has an iPod jack and a USB port, for listening to the music that was issued in her hayday. I had Dario put in recoiling seatbelts and a removal passenger side seat that allows me to load whole cases of wine into her backseat.

But come to the Salento and keep an eye out on the dusty red country roads, for a tiny car that really picks up speed when she wants to. Keep your eyes peeled for a tiny teal car pulling a virtual wheelie, her backseat laden with cases of wine and olive oil and a stack of guide books to the two.

And listen careful and you might hear her happy owner, belting out out-of-tune, Italian torch songs from the year 1970, singing over the top of her engine noise and the whistling wind whipping through the fields and fields of 1,000 year old olive trees.

Ours is a love story. And like anyone in love, while my eye might wonder every now and then towards a younger, sleeker model with sportier dimensions, my heart remains steadfast, true, faithful. Keys in hand I catch of glance of her in the school’s courtyard everyday and the same phrase comes to my lips. ‘Ciao gioia mia. Ti voglio bene assai’.