We all have our guilty pleasures – or guilty fantasies: cars we’re slightly embarrassed to admit (or at least we should be) that we secretly want to drive. For this writer, it’s a Fiat 500 Jolly, like this one that’s slated to go up for auction in a couple of months.
Jolly is the name given to Cinquecentos back in the day that were turned into beach cars: chopped down, chromed up, and often fitted with wicker seats, with or without a roof that more closely resembles a sidewalk café awning. They were made to zip around Mediterranean resort towns, shuttling between hotels, vacation homes, ice cream parlors and the seashore.
This particular example looks like one of the most charming we’ve seen yet. Like most, it was converted by Ghia – one of Italy’s vaunted independent carrozzeria (prior to being bought by Ford) – and comes in just the right shade of azure blue. It’d be just the thing to keep at our fantasy second home on the Amalfi Coast, but it’s even registered for use on American roads, complete with Florida plates that read “JOLLIE.”
Wherever we’d be inclined drive it, the smile it would put on our faces would likely outshine any sense of embarrassment we might otherwise have. If only we had the $60-80k it’s estimated to sell for when Auctions America drops the gavel at Hilton Head in South Carolina come November 5.
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