Vito returns to Sicily & Connie's birth year

Thanks to that website about cars used in movies I discovered why the original DVD listed Connie's birth year as 1927.

They apparantly based that date on the car in which Vito and his family drive when they first returned to Sicily, as that car apparantly is a Fiat 503 Torpedo from 1927.

However, according to The Godfather Legacy and Godfather book it was 1922/1923, apparantly based on Coppola's personal notes.

If you look at the little boy in Vito's arm (which is Michael) I think there's now way he could have been older than 4 years old.

What do you guys think?

That is likely given the time line.

Well, there's another mistake:
The car is a Fiat 501, predecessor of the 503, which was made between 1919 and 1925. No way that scene could have been shot in 1927. Michael was born ca. 1919, and, as you point out, he's 3 or 4 years old at most in that scene. If Connie was 18 in 1945, she'd have been born in 1927.

Michael was in college in 1945, at the wedding. If he was born in 1919, then he was 26 at Connie's wedding??? Even though his education was interrupted by the war, he would have been 22 when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Given that Sonny is teasing him that day, calling him "Joe College", it would seem that he was younger than that.

A picture is worth 100 words (adjusted for inflation).

Here is the Corleone return to Sicily circa 1923. Michael, then 4 years old is standing in front of Vito. Fredo, then 5 years old is standing in front of Don Tommasino in the wheelchair. Sonny, 7 years old is on the left and the infant Connie is being held by Mama Corleone.

Are you sure it's a 501 and not a 503? The cars are almost identical. How can you tell? And why else would the DVD say it was 1927?

According to that car database this is a Fiat 503.



Here are some photos of the Fiat 501 and 503.

Fiat 503:





Fiat 501:

TB, I'm still curious to you're reply wether or not the car is a 501 or 503 and how you can tell.

I googled an historic car site. The text said the 503 was essentially an incremental update of the 501, and some of the early 503's had grillwork similar to the 501.

You may very well be right. I hope you do, because otherwise it would be another error made in the films. Driving a car from 1927 while it was 1923.

But I personally still think it's a 503. You can notice the difference by looking at the front fender (not sure if that's the right word) of the wheel. You see the ones on the screenshots are similar to the ones of the 503's on the pictures. The 501 however has a slightly different front fender.