It’s pouring rain today, but it’s summer somewhere, so why not a #FiatJolly for the day? If you’ve heard of the Jolly you’ll know exactly what it is, but with less than 100 survivors (an estimate), most people have never seen one. Since all were custom made by #Ghia and most have had some level of restoration work, they often have weird details. This car is a ’58 Fiat Jolly, but has the bumpers and badges of a Seat 600D - I briefly met the owner but we chatted about one of her other cars (still to come), but some details aside, this is a genuine #Jolly and has also been featured at @thedrive . Never intended for much use as a road car, the Jolly sprang up from a single car built for Fiat boss Gianni Agnelli, known for being the driving force behind Fiat’s postwar success but also for his style and passion for yachts, including the 82-foot Agenta which he bought in 1959. Legend has it that Ghia created the Jolly, an open-air 500 with wicker seats, at Agnelli’s request so he could take a beach car with him. Indeed, at one point Agnelli commissioned a pair of special Jollys, one for himself and one for Aristotle Onassis, with special styling by Ghia, and stationed his car at the Villa Leopolda on the French Riviera. The Jollly was used primarily for short hops on beaches and resorts - a few were used for years as tourist shuttles on San Catalina Island, one 500 Jolly was famously used by Lyndon Johnson on his ranch, the car a gift from Agnelli. Many famous people owned them as accessories to Yachts or other recreational activities - they were used more like Golf carts than proper cars - although they can still drive like a regular Fiat 600. The open-air cars were a novelty item and pricey (almost twice the price of a regular Fiat 600) - but #CarrozzeriaGhia and other builders kept making cars like into the late sixties, one of the last being the Michelotti-built #Fiat 850-based Shellette. Some Jollies had surrey tops to shade people from the sun, but most were al fresco all the time. A “car” with a limited market, not many Jollys were made; and as you’d expect, Italian cars used near salt water with no tops do not survive long - so the Jolly is very rare today.