Also in my garage: Fiat fridges and classic cars

By Martin Buckley

| 3 Jan 2025

Classic & Sports Car – Also in my garage: Fiat fridges and classic cars

Mark Devaney is a great Italophile and lover of all things Fiat – and not just the Dino his Tunbridge Wells-based firm 24 Hundred specialises in.

He is equally enthusiastic about his 600 and wistful for the 130 Coupé he sold a few years ago, but he still has two Maserati Mistrals and an early Quattroporte with which to console himself.

Mark tells a lovely story of a day in the 1960s when Ford executives, in an expansive mood while in the midst of ultimately fruitless dealings with Enzo Ferrari, flew from Detroit into Turin airport for talks with Gianni Agnelli.

“The vintage-fridge habit formed at the same time as my car interest was getting serious”

“Lined up on the runway at Turin-Caselle,” says Mark, “was every product Fiat made – not just cars, but also trucks, buses, aircraft, road diggers, air-conditioning plants, tractors, printing machines… Anything and everything you could think of.

“The Americans were so intimidated they almost turned around and went home: they probably thought they might end up getting taken over by the Italians rather than the other way around.”

Among those products was Fiat’s popular range of domestic refrigerators (never officially imported into the UK), and it was these that captured Mark’s youthful imagination back in the 1980s.

Mark Devaney’s appliance obsession dovetails neatly with his love for the Fiat Dinos he works on daily

“The vintage-fridge habit formed at the same time as my car interest was getting serious,” recalls Mark, who has been running his Dino restoration business for the past 20 years.

“I was drawn to the 1950s stuff, especially the transatlantic-style Dagenham Fords.

“I remember being at a party when I was 16 and gravitating to the kitchen – it wasn’t my type of music.

“They had a giant American fridge. I said to the girl’s mother, ‘That fridge is like a Cadillac!’ It towered over me, all curves and chrome. I have never really recovered.”

Bicycle manufacturer Bianchi partnered with Fiat and Pirelli in 1955 to form Autobianchi

Mark’s first car was a 1961 Ford Consul, and not long after that a friend gave him a Prestcold refrigerator.

“It was very much the Consul to that Cadillac at the party,” he smiles.

“Prestcold was part of the British Motor Corporation’s group, so the fridge had curvy transatlantic styling but on a more English scale.

“My tastes then matured and I started to appreciate Italian cars. This soon became a business repairing Fiat’s finest, the Dino.”

The Fiat Piccola fridge packs lots of 1960s flair with its pastel pink interior

Working mostly on his own, Mark’s time is always in short supply, but he has surplus energy for his Mark’s Italian Garage YouTube channel while occasionally adding to his extensive collection of Dino-related models, brochures and other assorted ephemera collected over the past 30 years.

Mark has customers and contacts based all over the world, with particularly good connections in Italy.

That comes in useful, as you might expect, when it comes to sourcing rare items – including refrigerators.

This Fiat-branded, pistachio-coloured Motto Grande fridge is in need of restoration

“Fiat made so many things back in the 1950s – and they still do – and I was taken with the fridges because their early-’50s style was much like my Prestcold, albeit with an added gold washboard, Zodiac-style, just for aesthetics.

“But, as I said, my tastes have matured and it’s the 1960s style I’m into now.

“My Piccola model still retains that pastel, mid-century optimism with its pink interior, but the slash-cut opposing scallops are pure Brutalist Italian sharp suit.

“It even has the same Fiat bolts used in the Dino and my 600.

“The white one I have restored, but the pistachio Motto Grande model is going to need some treatment – as will I if I don’t get my Fiat fridge habit under control.”

Images: Jack Harrison

Enjoy more of the world’s best classic car content every month when you subscribe to C&SC – get our latest deals here

Life’s a beach: Fiat 600 Jolly

Also in my garage: Ranalah wheeling machines