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Tom Hanks' custom 1974 Fiat 126p has sold for $83,500

Actor Tom Hanks has sold his custom 1974 Fiat 126p at auction for $83,500. It's a notable sum for a 23-horsepower Polish-built microcar, but it's not even the most interesting part of the story. That would be how the Saving Private Ryan star came to possess the car, which was never officially sold in the U.S. in the first place. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The "Polski" Fiat 126p was built in Cold War Poland under license from Fiat while the country was still under communist rule. A successor to the original Fiat 500, the model was particularly long-lived. Fiat built about 1.4 million of them in Italy from 1972-1991. However, that number pales in comparison with the estimated 3.3 million additional cars from Bielsko-Biala, Poland, where the car was manufactured until 2000. Cars built in Poland were denoted 126p, and locals nicknamed them "Maluch," or "small one" in Polish. They were still prevalent in former Eastern Bloc nations like Hungary in 2016 when Hanks visited the country. As an apparent joke he posed next to a few street-parked examples that he came across, posting the subsequent photos to Twitter with the caption "So excited about my new car!!" According to The Drive, a Hanks fan named Monika Jaskolska, a resident of Bielsko-Biala, saw the tweets and made it her mission to get one for him. Jaskolska ended up raising enough money, along with corporate sponsors, to not only restore a 126p, but build a custom interior for Toma Hanksa, as he's known as in Polish. Because the Philadelphia actor was known for collecting typewriters, they customized the interior switchgear to resemble keys from a vintage one. Some of the money raised also went to a local pediatric hospital. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The car was given an unveiling ceremony in Poland before it was delivered to Hanks in Los Angeles via cargo jet, just in time for his birthday. In addition to the custom interior, the car features some exclusive badging and a Forrest Gump quote on a plaque affixed to the dashboard, so there's no confusing it with a regular Polski Fiat. Now, however, it's time to move the car on to a new owner. Hanks is donating the full sale amount to Hidden Heroes, which supports military caregivers, the spouses and parents of injured or ill servicemen and servicewomen.

Alfa Romeo takes Spider in-house, Mazda-Fiat roadster partnership not dead

It's officially off. Following a report in March of this year that the marriage of Mazda and Alfa Romeo to produce a MX-5-based Spider was in trouble, the Italians have confirmed that it will take development in-house. "As far as the Spider goes, the final version is of course no longer the two-seater FCA co-developed with Mazda but a derivative of Project Giorgio," Maserati and Alfa Romeo brand boss Harald Wester told Car. For those not in the know, Project Giorgio is Alfa's codename for the rear-drive platform that will underpin the next-generation Spider, not to mention the replacement for the 159 sedan and a few other products. All is not lost for the Japanese-Italian partnership, though. "The Far East import will probably find a new home with Fiat-Abarth," Wester told Car. Yes, you read that correctly, Mazda is still working with FCA, and the result will eventually end up with Abarth's scorpion badge. If anything, we're more excited over this news than the idea of an Alfa MX-5. But we want to know what you think – would you rather Alfa build a new Spider on the Miata's bones, or does an MX-5 Abarth sound like more fun? Have your say in Comments.

China own a Detroit automaker? Would the U.S. let that happen?

The news that several Chinese automakers want to buy Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and that one has even made an offer, elicits some mixed feelings. On one hand, as some have pointed out, it could be a win-win both for China and for FCA's American workers, ensuring the company's survival and opening new markets. On the other hand, this is China, whose trade relationship with the U.S. is the source of considerable scrutiny from the Trump administration — and whose not-a-friend, not-an-enemy status is particularly difficult to gauge right now during heightened tensions with its client state North Korea. So would such a deal pass regulatory muster? One reason that springs to mind for blocking any sale has to do with national security. Chrysler's role as a military supplier dates back to Dodge trucks used by Gen. Blackjack Pershing to chase Pancho Villa in Mexico, and shortly thereafter by American forces in World War I. The Detroit Three automakers were, of course, mainstays of the Arsenal of Democracy of World War II. Even before U.S. entry into the war in December 1941, America's industrial machinery went into overdrive, and Chrysler was one of the biggest cogs. It engineered and built the M3, Sherman and Pershing tanks and trucks for Gen. George Patton's Redball Express. It helped develop a radar-guided antiaircraft gun that knocked German bombers and V1 rockets out of the sky — on one day, shooting down 97 of 101 V1s headed for London. On D-Day, the radar system helped thwart Luftwaffe counterattacks on the beaches of Normandy, and it later helped Allied forces break out at the Battle of the Bulge. Chrysler redesigned the Wright Cyclone engines used by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the plane that firebombed Tokyo and dropped the atomic bombs that ended the war. Chrysler even played a secret role refining uranium in Oak Ridge, Tenn., that was used in the Hiroshima bomb and in the ensuing Cold War arms race. It worked on military missiles and was NASA's prime contractor for the Saturn V rocket that put men on the moon. More recently, Chrysler produced the M1 Abrams tank. And of course Chrysler is the keeper of the flame for Jeep, a 75-plus-years military legacy handed down from Bantam and Willys to Kaiser to AMC to Chrysler. The point of this history lesson is to note that in times of war or national emergency, America's industrial might has been called to serve, and may well be called on again.