not include a "Torpedo" bodied car. By the time the model was replaced in France by the Simca 8 (based on the next generation of the Fiat 508 Balilla) 26,472 of the cars had been built by Simca in Nanterre or its predecessor company, "SAFAF", in Suresnes. Czechoslovakia The 508 was also produced at Prague-Jinonice by Walter a.s. under designation Walter Junior. Production started in autumn 1932; till 1936, little over one thousand vehicles were built. All produced Juniors got only three-speed gearbox. Prices started at 27,500 Kč for two-door saloon. Popular culture / song Famous Belgian cartoon author André Franquin's goofy hero-without-employment Gaston Lagaffe, uses a Balilla 508 (some say it is the very similar Fiat 509) as a daily transport. Though the car is "customized" with a checkered flag stripe (laboriously cut out of dozens of crossword puzzles), it is a hopeless piece of junk with a wheezy, smoke belching, misfiring engine. Nevertheless, Gaston doesn't seem to care and even "improves" his car with crackpot inventions, generally leading to some disastrous débacle. He generously offers rides to (generally reluctant) office colleagues who invariably regret their accepting, except Gaston's pointy nosed, pony-tailed, bespectacled love interest, Mademoselle Jeanne. The Balilla 508 was one of the first attempt of mass motorization in Europe, long before the Wolkswagen Beetle or the Citroën 2CV though its customers were more lower middle and middle class than working classes, it was a quite desired (and often stolen) item in 1930s Italy. It was such an emblematic car that a specially dedicated song (or better said dozens variations of an initial song) was created at the time of its launch. The song is a burlesque and almost surrealist ballad called "La Balilla"about a small time cottage industrialist who sells soap, bleach and washing powder on town markets and makes a tidy income out of it, enabling him to buy a top of the range balilla with an exotic option, a special custom upholstery made out of eel skin. He instantly triggers envy and jealousy around him, his sisters, brothers, neighbours and relatives (and even a picturesque mob of passers-by) start literally to eat the car bit by bit. (In the Sicilian and Neapolitan versions the car is rather stolen bit by bit, either by petty thugs or by seemingly respectable people acting just the same.) Most rhymes are matching with some unlikely part of the car,