500

Warning: The car above is a Fiat 600. Yes, a 600. But it's a lovely little car, so it stays on the page :)

Having listened to Lovelife dozens of times now, it seems that the lovely (and much praised) song "500" is about a car. A Fiat 500, in fact, and the picture above is one of these little cars.

Its nickname is "little mouse" (or the Italian equivalent, which is "topolino") y'see. Or is it?

[Alessandro, an Italian correspondent from Genova writes:

I thought to help you about the meaning of the "500" song telling you that I'm not a real car fan but I try the same: as you said in your 500.htm file, the song is dedicated to the FIAT 500 car which can be seen in the video-clip.
As a matter of fact, the nickname "little mouse" is not referred to the car present in the video but is referred to a much older version of the FIAT 500 car released from Fiat before the World War II. The FIAT 500 present in the video came out in 1959 and it was completely different from the first version: this car,like the other FIAT 600, contributed to motorize my country and it's still loved by car fans. Although FIAT 500 is similar to the FIAT 600 at a first glance, here in Italy the two cars are differently considered, in fact FIAT 600 is only considered as an old car, while the 500 is considered as a very beautiful car.
If you used the FIAT 600 in Italy, surely everybody would laugh at you. I know that both in Italy and in Europe frequent meetings are organized for the FIAT 500 fans: the nickname in GENOVA about this car is "cinque fette" which literally in my city means "five slices".
In Italy this slang is used to call the money, in fact a slice means 100 Italian Lire, a very very little amount of money; extending this method, 500 Italian Lire are called 5 slices, so this slang has been used also to indicate the car.
I also send you an image of the real FIAT 500 with an attachment: this image is VERY similar to the red car featured in the video, so you can update your 500.htm file.]

I'm thinking, then, that Emma thought, like me, that "Topolino" was also a nickname for the more modern little Fiat 500.

Anyway, here is the picture of a 500 that Alessandro sent me:

A fair few people have said that the "Lushmobile" was a Fiat 500, but I haven't ever seen a picture of it, unless this is it, so I can't comment on that.