I recently got to talk to the original designer of the 124 Spider Tom Tjaarda. The Corvette Rondina is his also. Here is his words.
Hello Gary,
Back when I designed the 124 spider the directors at Fiat liked the Rondine general theme and suggested that
it be used on the spider, seeing that GM was not interested. This was easier said than done, that is the Corvette
has a longer wheelbase and overhangs that made the car more elegant and GT like, whereas the 124 was rather
compact with very short overhangs. Adapting the same Corvette theme to the Fiat chassis was not easy.
My original layout for the 124 to construct the buck was in fact more like the Rondine, using the rear lights like that of the Rondina, and the front end had square headlights (only round and square ones were permitted back then)
that had a small upper cover that rotated up when in use, thus hiding a bit the lights during daytime driving.
On the rear, I think that they decided on the lower tail lights because they were off the shelf items and thus cutting tooling costs for totally new ones. The front end we had to modify using the Fiat required round lights and a more conventional design due to the very short front overhang. The Rondine front end just did not work, styling and proportion wise,
on such a squashed nose.
The twin roll bumpers were a crash test necessity for the States, but I agree could have been done much
better.
All the best
Tom Tjaarda
