Vintage Toronto Ads: Fiat Freeways

Source: Sports Illustrated, June 20, 1960.

Fiat has been in the news headlines regularly lately, thanks to its proposed alliance with ailing automaker Chrysler. Half a century ago, the Italian auto giant tried to woo buyers in North America with compact cars like the Fiat 1100 in an age when bigger was better for domestic manufacturers and consumers.

The expressways that fill out Fiat's name could have easily been the flurry of highways and speedy road extensions built around Metro Toronto during the preceding decade. The company's Canadian office at Bloor and Jarvis streets, the site of which now houses Rogers, might have had a good view of the Mount Pleasant Road extension that opened in 1950. Major portions of what are now the Gardiner Expressway, and Highways 400, 401, and 427 were opened to traffic between 1952 and 1958, while construction of the first segment of the Don Valley Parkway was well underway by the time this ad appeared.