Start with what the Fiat 4 HP is: a vis à vis with straight-2 679 , built from 1899 to 1900, when the motor car was still a public experiment. What it meant takes a little longer. The shape is credited to Aristide Faccioli. 24 were built.
How it came about
The Fiat 4 HP (also known as the 3½ HP or 3½ CV) was the first model of car produced by FIAT, from 1899 to 1900 based on a third party design.
The hardware
The engine is straight-2 679 . On the scales it comes to 680 kg. Drive goes through a 3-speed manual. The layout matters: the engine hangs behind the rear axle, a layout that gives ferocious traction out of a corner and a reputation to match on the way in. The wheelbase is 1470 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
In the Fiat line-up the Fiat 4 HP has a clear place: it handed the line to the Fiat 6 HP; the factory was Corso Dante plant, Turin, Italy. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Buick Buick, the Panhard & Levassor type A 2 closed tonneau, the Panhard & Levassor M2F Break CnAM 20520. Its Fiat stablemates include the FIAT 702 and the Fiat 1.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the Fiat 4 HP — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.