Spurred by tweets Tom Hanks posted showing himself admiring an iconic communist-era car, Poles have raised the cash to buy a tiny Fiat 126 p for the Hollywood star, organisers said Tuesday.
The Oscar-winner posed next to several of the cars affectionately dubbed “Maluch”, or “little guy” in Polish, during a shoot late last year in the Hungarian capital Budapest.
“I got a new car! Hanx,” reads a caption on one of the tweets that caught the attention of Poles after going viral.
I got a new car! Hanx pic.twitter.com/kzij8QEIyo
— Tom Hanks (@tomhanks) November 18, 2016
Monika Jaskolska, a 42-year-old mother who lives in Bielsko-Biala — the southern Polish town where Italian carmaker Fiat produced over three million “Maluchs” between 1971 to 2000 — dreamt up the idea to send Hanks one of them as a gift.
Although cramped and clunky, the ultra-compact cars were prized during the communist era in Poland and other socialist bloc countries where consumer goods were in very short supply.
Jaskolska, who told AFP Tuesday she wanted to show Hanks “how fond Poles are of this car”, raised 2,000 euros ($2,150) via a Facebook page to buy a 1970 model.
An autobody shop has volunteered to renovate it free of charge before it is flown to Los Angeles by an airline that has also agreed to cover the cost of the flight.
