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WHAT A LITTLE SWEETHEART! PART 2
YESTERDAY IN PART 1, WE BEGAN DESCRIBING the Fiat 508S Balilla Corsa, its Balilla moniker honoring an 18th-century Italian patriot. Today, Classic & Sports Car’s Richard Heseltine focuses on the Brit-residing Balilla Corsa CMG 99 and its first owner/driver, a WWII spy two hundred years after the original Balilla patriot.
Tuners Take a Role. Heseltine recounts, “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.”
The Balilla’s 995-cc four-cylinder powerplant eventually had overhead valves replacing its original side valves. Italian tuners got involved, and its output grew from 20 to as much as 36 hp. An original three-speed gearbox gave way to a four-speed, albeit still free of any synchronization.
Punching Above Its Weight. Heseltine continues, “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.”
A Double-Agent Owner. “ ‘Our’ 508S,” Heseltine recounts, “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.”
Then came World War II and “It was at this juncture,” Heseltine says, “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.”
The Balilla Corsa Continues Racing Post-War. Metcalfe developed his Balilla into a competitive machine. Heseltine quotes Dennis May: “[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.”
Metcalfe races his Balilla Corsa at Silverstone in 1954. Image from DTR European Sports Cars via C&SC.
The Balilla passed from hand to hand during this period, which may explain its occasional divergences from Fiat parts bins. (Note 110-mph speedo and 6000-rpm tach.)
Above, Smith instruments exaggerate the Balilla’s performance. Below, its pedal placement—the throttle in the middle—optimizes heel-and-toe downshifts necessary with its 4-speed non-synchro gearbox.
Heseltine’s Summary: “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.”
As I noted early on: Che Piccola Dolcezza! ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025
Simanaitis Says 
The picture of Metcalfe racing the car shows how tiny it really is, or how big Metcalfe was. Sort of reminds me of the advertising brochure for my four seat Morgan Plus 4 showing four happy folks in the car with two seemingly comfortable in the back seat. In our nearly 20 years of ownership the only rear seat passengers have been one daughter (very briefly) and more often a pooch or two, luggage or a case (or two) of wine.
Agreed. The pic in Part 1 shows how tiny the car is. The one time we cajoled friends back there, they said they felt like royalty sitting so high.
On the other hand, on tours we could carry friends’ luggage as well as ours.