Topic: solved - als075 - Fiat 628

[als15]

What is it? Why is it so unusual?
If you know, you'll get a point.

[als15]

How long will il last among Experts?

[Bill Murray]

Your vehicle is a Fiat 628, which is essentially a Fiat 626 built in 1944/1945 after the surrender of Italy for the German forces.

It is unusual in that it has the German "Einheits" cabin, also known as the "Late War"or "Lost War" cabin.  Made of wood instead of steel to save material.  Also has German style road wheels in place of the normal Italian wheels.

Bill

[als15]

The point is your!

By the way, do you know if it was just a one-off prototype or if it has been actually produced? Sources look discordant about that...

[4popoid]

I understand that it was manufactured in some quantity during late 1944, and early 1945.

[Bill Murray]

Hi Guys:

I have done further research, but am not finished yet.

From what I have found, something more than 3,000 examples of the basic 624N were built specifically for the Germans after they took over Northern Italy in 1944.  They commissioned a wood gas producer variant on that chassis and also our vehicle the 628.  The 628 used the common design for the "Einheits" or "Standard" cab that was also found on virtually all other German trucks in the last months of the war.
Also standard Opel road wheels.

The reason for this was the lack of iron to make steel cabs and the fact that wood was plentiful and the design was very much simpler and easier to assemble and cost a fraction of the cost of a steel cab.
The Opel wheels were also of a much simpler design and cheaper and quicker to make.

That being said, I do not have really good printed reference materiel on Italian WW2 trucks and have to rely a lot on the Internet for information.  In that context, I have never seen a photo of the wood gas producer variant anywhere and the one and only photo I have seen on dozens of sites of the 628 is als15's photo.

That leads me to believe that we are talking here about a prototype that was never produced.
At the same time, it is offered as a resin model kit by an Italian company and the kit is very detailed which leads me to believe that this truck, again perhaps a prototype, still exists.

It may be that als15 could ring up Fiat's PR department and ask to speak to someone in their Corporate Archives Department to see if they could look up the production figures for that truck.

If I don't see anything here for a day or so, I will send Fiat an email to see if I can get the figure.

Bill

[als15]

I did some further researches and, as I said, sources don't tell always the same.
I confirm that the only photo is that one (by the way, taken in front of Fiat Lingotto factory).
The most reliable books that I know, "Gli autoveicoli logistici e tattici del Regio Esercito italiano fino al 1943" ("Italian Royal Army's logistical and tactical motor-vehicles until 1943", that actually covers also non-motor vehicles and up to mid 1945) says that it's not clear but probably it was just a prototype trying to adapt Opel Blitz wheels and Lancia "Einheits" cabins on Fiat 626 chassis, for the reasons told by Bill.

According to the Army (which, it worhts to say for who doesn't know in Detail Italian WWII history, passed in September 1943 from the former Royal Army to the new Republican Army when the King moved on the side of the Allies) records, only some hundreds of Fiat 626 have actually been built by Fiat in 1944/45. But, as told, the picture is not clear, because the new Republican Army - still allied with the Germans - was not very well organized and many documents got lost: also, Fiat was a supplier of Wermacht in Italy too, and again documents are not all survived.

I'm asking, to be honest, because I'm currently writing a book about Carrozzeria Scioneri and they started in late 1943 making "wooden truck cabins for Fiat". I'm trying to understand if they actually made only some plywood 626 cabins (that wasn't the Einheits but similar to the metal one, with curved panels) or if they have ever been involved also in the Einheits cabins production.
But, unfortunately, no records - once again - survived after the war and this early period is quite obscure, apart from interwievs released decades later by Mr. Scioneri's son.