Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa: small wonder

By Richard Heseltine

| 16 Oct 2025

Classic & Sports Car – Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa: small wonder

What impresses people is generational, but Fiat has plenty of form when it comes to producing small, appealing roadsters.

Witness the likes of the 850 Spider, the pretty Pininfarina 1200/1500/600 Cabriolets, the 124 – both of old and the retro retread – the X1/9 and the Barchetta.

Rather less well known, particularly outside its homeland, is the 508S Corsa that preceded them.

The Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa became well-known in road rallying

Like most other Fiat sports cars, a certain amount of begging, borrowing and stealing of parts was involved in its creation, the basis here being the 508A Balilla that was introduced at the Salone Internazionale dell’Automobile Milano in April 1932.

This diddy saloon boasted a sidevalve, four-cylinder 995cc engine developed by Bartolomeo Nebbia and making 22bhp, with later cars using overhead-valve cylinder heads.

It was allied to a three-speed gearbox (later a four-speed unit), with the 508A also boasting four-wheel hydraulic brakes and a 12V (rather than 6V) electrical system.

The Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa is a shrunken sports-racer

Fiat followed up the berlina 12 months later with the rakish Sport Spider, which featured an elegant, sweeping wing line, and the flyweight, cycle-winged Spider Corsa, both the work of Carrozzeria Ghia in collaboration with Fiat insiders.

There were hints of the exotic Alfa Romeo 6C-1750 Gran Sport in their shapes, not least the downswept tail and central dorsal fin.

While Fiat had officially withdrawn from frontline motor racing in 1927, that didn’t stop the 508S from dominating its class in period.

The Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa’s attractively patinated seats are snug

The Corsa is most closely associated with the 1934 Coppa d’Oro del Littorio.

This madcap endurance event comprised a 3524-mile route that zigzagged Italy across eight days in late May and early June of that year.

Fiat won its class in this, the sole staging of the competition, and the ‘Coppa d’Oro’ tag was applied to the Corsa thereafter.

Other variants followed in its wake, some of them quite sophisticated, all things being relative.

A tuning industry also arose to serve 508S privateers, with the likes of Giorgio Ambrosini’s Siata enjoying tacit support from the works to begin with, and practical support by the mid-1930s.

Taking to the mean streets of Surrey in a former spy’s feisty Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa

Further successes followed on the Mille Miglia, at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Targa Florio, the Grand Prix de l’ACF and the Ulster Tourist Trophy, as the 508S punched above its minimal weight time and again.

Not only that, but it also garnered plaudits in France, where the 508 was produced under licence by Simca at Suresnes.

Amédée Gordini was very much to the fore, the Italian emigré conjuring his own-brand, aftermarket aluminium cylinder head.

After winning the 24-hour Bol d’Or race with a 508 in 1936, Le Sorcier went on to head Simca’s fledgling competition department before setting out to create his own marque.

The Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa’s overhead-valve ‘four’ is punchier than expected

There remains some confusion today over exactly how many 508 Corsas were produced.

The general consensus is that it was no more than 500, including the cars built under licence by Simca in France and NSU in Germany.

As many as 48 of the later, overhead-valve cars were imported into Blighty as right-hand-drive rolling chassis to be clothed locally in a similar style to their Latin-built Ghia brethren, the most obvious deviance being the reprofiled rear fins.

The little-known machines struggled to find buyers, however, and a dozen cars were eventually repatriated to Italy.

Smiths dials decorate this classic Fiat’s simple dashboard

‘Our’ 508S was registered in May 1935 and first owned – and campaigned extensively – by Christopher Le Strange ‘Dickie’ Metcalfe, making it one of the best-known of the cars supplied to Britain.

Born in Wakefield in May 1907, and raised in Reading, Metcalfe started his racing career in 1929 with a Morgan-JAP, which soon made way for the ex-Douglas Hawkes Anzani-powered Horstman then a chain-drive Frazer Nash, for which Metcalfe had a bespoke body fashioned by Abbotts of Farnham.

Yet he is best known for his exploits in this 508S, which enjoyed several outings at Brooklands and elsewhere before Europe descended into conflict.

‘On the Mille Miglia, at Le Mans and in the Ulster Tourist Trophy, the Fiat 508S punched above its minimal weight time and again’

It was at this juncture that Metcalfe’s life took a turn for the less ordinary after he was recruited as a spy while in Lisbon, Portugal. His German controllers believed that he was working for them.

In reality, he was a double agent, passing intelligence to MI5’s director of counter-espionage, Guy Liddell, operating under the sobriquet ‘Balloon’ for the duration of the Second World War.

With the return of peacetime, Metcalfe became a civil servant at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and continued to develop the Fiat in association with tuning maestro VH ‘Jack’ Tuson.

He claimed an outright win during the inaugural Goodwood Members’ Meeting in 1949, as well as securing a class victory in the ‘100-Mile’ Sports Car Race at the Boreham International Festival of Motor Sport in August 1952.

The Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa faces an RWG at the 1953 Brighton Speed Trials © DTR European Sports Cars

Towards the end of the year, The Autocar produced a four-page review of the aged Fiat.

Dennis May wrote: ‘[The car] differed little, either inwardly or outwardly, from its pre-war self, but one visible feature – the forward-facing air scoop on the bonnet – dates from comparatively recent times.

‘This was a present from ex-Brooklands man Cyril Watkinson, who shifted his sphere of activity to the aircraft world some years ago, and comes off a Gipsy Six.

‘Metcalfe doesn’t delude himself that any measurable ram effect is created at a mere 82mph [the car’s top speed], but before the scoop was added the carburettor intake mouth was a whit close to the inner face, probably resulting in rather fuggy breathing.’

First owner ‘Dickie’ Metcalfe races the Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa at Silverstone in 1954 © DTR European Sports Cars

The article went on to state that Metcalfe had lapped Goodwood at a 68.7mph average – which, considering its relatively modest top speed, was hugely impressive.

‘Dickie’ was a ballsy driver, that’s for sure. He subsequently converted the Aston Butterworth Formula Two car into a Coventry Climax-engined sports-racer with a pretty body by Maurice Gomm, and later modified the ex-Jack Paterson Lola Mk1 before remodelling a Formula Three Cooper.

Even in the late ’70s, when comfortably of pensionable age, Metcalfe was still landing victories aboard a brace of Lotus 23s.

From all accounts a jovial and modest man, he died in Westminster in 1988, aged 80.

The Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa’s tail hints at its Alfa Romeo 6C-1750 Gran Sport inspiration

The history file that accompanies this car suggests that Metcalfe sold the Fiat in late 1953 after advertising it in The Autocar for £400.

Later correspondence between dealer/racer Frank Lockhart and automotive historian Michael Sedgwick states that the Fiat found a new home in Cheshire.

Two years later it was at the apostrophe-deficient Lockharts Service Depot, Dunstable.

‘The body, as far as I know, is the original two seater with special light alloy wings, TT regulation,’ wrote Lockhart.

‘Also a light alloy 6-gallon fuel tank by Galley, special shock absorbers and 15in road wheels with 500x15 Dunlop Racing tyres, 46bhp… It is now bored out to 1040cc, peak revs in top, 4500rpm.’

Cycle wings cover the Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa’s slender tyres

The Balilla later passed to a TDL Rose of Harpenden; he in turn swiftly moved it on to David Manning, who campaigned the car for much of the 1960s (along with other Fiats).

It was then acquired by marque stalwart Cyril Hancock, who had the car restored during the early ’80s and went on to own the Fiat for more than 30 years before it returned to its homeland where an Italian dealer, unaware of the 508’s important history, began stripping away its Metcalfe-era modifications.

Before any significant damage had been done, however, British-based Fiat specialist Paul de Turris spotted the car; he repatriated it in 2016, and has been using it regularly ever since.

The Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa’s long, spindly, original gearlever has replaced the 1950s quick-shifter for a more authentic feel

Which brings us to today, and making our way out of a busy industrial estate in Coulsdon.

Photographs don’t really lend a sense of scale: the 508S really is minuscule. Pretty, too, in a pared-back, where’s-the-rest-of-it sort of way.

The cutaway sides make it easy enough to clamber into, but you feel as though you sit on the Fiat as much as in it.

Turn the key, pull out the starter, and the compact ‘four’ barks noisily into life – there is nothing so dreary as silencing to be found here.

The engine that propelled Metcalfe to so many victories is no longer in the car, but it is packing a Tuson-tuned unit, one that has been in situ for decades and sounds almost antisocial.

The Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa’s centre throttle hangs low

Before pulling away, you need to wrap your head around an ergonomic quirk: the steering wheel sits in your lap, as you might expect, but the column has an uncomfortably close relationship with the pedals.

It’s flanked by the brake and clutch, with the pendant-style accelerator hanging low beneath it.

A degree of gymnastics is required, but you soon get used to it and the Fiat is easy to drive – so long as you think.

Just remember that the pedal in the middle is the throttle and the one on the right is the brake, and you’ll be fine.

Once freed from the city’s shackles, this classic Fiat comes into its own

Take a deep breath, and we’re off, heading into the teeming chaos of south London bound for somewhere more scenic aboard a 90-year-old Brooklands veteran.

Fellow drivers share the same withering look, the one usually reserved for harmless masochists. You know, people who walk across hot coals or lie on a bed of nails just for the hell of it.

Fast-forward five minutes, however, and it’s as though somebody has flicked a switch.

Your inner monologue has stopped screaming and, as you venture into the grasslands of Coulsdon Common, you find that you have fallen for this Fiat 508S.

UK-bound Fiat 508S Balilla Corsas got a taller dorsal fin

There’s an immediacy here that is disarming. You don’t expect the little four-banger to be flexible given its high state of tune, but it pulls instantly from low revs.

That said, double-declutching needs practice, and coordination.

Until recently the car featured a 1950s quick-shifter, but it now has a period-correct set-up, complete with a comically long lever that gives the impression that second and third ratios are in different time zones.

This sensation dissipates with familiarity and, once initial trepidation is overcome, the Balilla is a hoot to drive.

‘Metcalfe had lapped Goodwood at 68.7mph – which, considering the Fiat’s modest top speed, was hugely impressive’

You can’t help but smile, not least as you climb the rev range.

It just goes, the only issue being that there aren’t many places for you to ‘go’ – at least, none that don’t involve you having to ‘stop’ almost immediately – until we have escaped the environs of suburban Croydon.

In every other respect, the Fiat is very much a small-displacement racer with all that entails.

The steering is nervily alive and pleasantly light with it. There’s surprisingly little kickback, too.

The Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa has a conventional H-pattern gearshift

You are aware of every bump and fissure via your contact points, but your spine doesn’t rattle. The car doesn’t jolt or tramline, either.

Once out on to smoother, less busy country lanes, you soon learn to let it do its own thing and not to over-correct. It’s non-threatening.

Prior experience of the 508S informs you that it changes direction far more quickly than you might expect, and you yearn to have the time and space to explore its repertoire further.

The Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa is delightful, once you’ve adjusted to its peculiarities

Dickie Metcalfe used to drive this car to every race meeting he attended with it, claiming a 50mph average for the hike to Silverstone from home in Reading.

A tiny pre-war racer isn’t at its best when mixing it with moderns, so we’re unlikely to be able to repeat such feats today, but it feels as if it’s up for the challenge.

Mastering the controls interrupts normal synaptic firing, but in many ways that only increases the attraction.

This Fiat is as flighty as a butterfly, but it packs quite a sting.

Images: Max Edleston

Thanks to: Paul de Turris, DTR European Sports Cars

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