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There had to be a moment when I saw the Polski Fiat 126 Group 2 for the first time. It happened as we drove down a narrow road near Bielsko Biała, in south-western Poland - there, amid glorious rolling countryside, sitting in front of a neat, red-roofed workshop, was the little blue and white rally car, resplendent in the markings the original wore in the late 1970s, during some of the most heroic drives in rallying history.

This is a car that defies the laws of perspective, because it looks bigger from further away, and gets smaller as you approach. You need to be right up close to appreciate its sensational lack of size - if you've seen a 126 on the road recently, you'll know what I mean.

Its lines have aged more gracefully than any 30-year-old car I can think of right now - it's beyond 'cute', it's properly pretty, clean, uncluttered, sweet. As we've read elsewhere in this magazine, if it's small and it's a Fiat, it's hard not to fall in love with.

So I did - I had no choice. I fell in love, at first sight, smitten to the core. And so did Top Gear creative director Charlie Turner, another self-confessed small Fiat nut. Only 'nut' can describe a man who would willingly volunteer to accompany me on this 126 drive - a thousand miles from the factory in Poland back to London via Berlin.

You can now buy a 126 replica like this for around £7,000. The cars use original 126 bodyshells and are lovingly prepared by 126 Group 2 in Bielsko Biała, just as the old Polish works rally cars were - roll cage, tuned engine, trick suspension, stripped bare.

Over three million Polski Fiat 126 road cars were license-built by FSM in Poland between 1973 and 2000, so there are plenty of bodyshells to go round. Polish roads are still clogged with the things.

However, to qualify for FIA-spec in historic rallies - the main raison d'être for this replica, though I suspect many people will buy it just to cherish it - the 126 must use a bodyshell constructed between 1978 and 1983. No problem, thousands to choose from.

It's a little-documented part of rallying history, Poland and Eastern Europe in the late 1970s, but talking to some of the participants and hearing their stories, I can tell you it's at a very high level for sheer guts, bravado and skill. And the FSM-OBR Polski 126s were in the thick of it, scrapping with far bigger, more powerful cars, and often putting them down.