MSN Autos comments on the Fiat Spider

[So Cal Mark]

this from a story about legendary convertibles;

Legendary summer convertibles


Fiat 124 | 1966-1982


Like Chevrolet Vegas and Ford Pintos, the Fiat 124 Spider is one of those cars that was once common as dirt, yet lives today mainly as a memory (often painful). You just don't see that many, thanks to disastrous rust issues; they were shipped from Italy exposed on ship decks and rusted on dealer lots. Electrical reliability is another dark spot, but for intrepid fans looking for a major restoration challenge, the Fiat 124 offers a roomy interior and timeless good looks compared to many contemporary English sports cars.

[johndemar]

I traded in a Vega for my new Spider. Got almost $450 for it!

[narfire]

There's a Vega for sale down the street from me. I liked the styling of the Vega better than the Pinto... But the Spider is far superior than both...
I like his comment regarding the roomy interior. The 2 seat rag tops today don't have room for a 6-pack behind the seats.. let alone a dog.

[spidernut]

I owned a Pinto and my first Spider at the same time. I loved them both but for very different reasons:

Pinto: 36 mpg driving like a flaming idiot, I beat the car up endlessly and it never broke down apart from an ignition switch failure, could shift without using the clutch and had no transmission noise or clutch problems, could get third gear scratch even with super wide tires, nobody ever bothered it, I didn't care if it got dented, it was cheap, cheap, cheap to drive!

Spider: 32 mpg driving conservatively on the freeway, I babied the car and it never broke down except for a fuel sending unit failure, had to baby the manual transmission yet it already was starting to make mild gear noise at 24,000 miles, wouldn't ever try to spin the tires in fear of exploding the differential, everyone bothered it and even had someone key it front to back when I had only 12,000 miles on it, it was expensive to buy but cheap to drive. I still loved it more than the Pinto (no surprise there)

[bobplyler]

I had a Pinto. I sold it to a friend of mine when I got my Spider.

The transmission leaked, and I forgot to fill it before 3 guys and I took it on a trip to the mountains to backpack. Along the way, the transmission started making noises, and would only confortably move in first gear. We made it off the highway, and there was a K-Mart right there. I got some gear oil, put it in the transmission, and it freed up, with no more problems. I put 160000 miles on that car.

[bradartigue]

Like Chevrolet Vegas and Ford Pintos, the Fiat 124 Spider is one of those cars that was once common as dirt, yet lives today mainly as a memory (often painful). You just don't see that many, thanks to disastrous rust issues; they were shipped from Italy exposed on ship decks and rusted on dealer lots. Electrical reliability is another dark spot, but for intrepid fans looking for a major restoration challenge, the Fiat 124 offers a roomy interior and timeless good looks compared to many contemporary English sports cars.

Who writes this garbage, people who don't work on cars? People who don't know anything about cars and don't know how to do 4th grade level research apparently. It is pathetic what passes for journalism, much less automotive journalism (which is sacred if you ask me). You can google this stuff...it's just too easy to get it so wrong every time.

Anyone who thinks a FIAT Spider is in any way a "major restoration challenge" probably doesn't know how to fill up (or plug in) their car without assistance. All old cars present challenges; by contrast to many "classics" the Spider is incredibly easy. The electrical system is about as simple as a Jeep from 1945. These things are easy. Want hard? Buy a Porsche 928. Six thousand miles of wire. Eighty fused circuits. Two million relays. The engine is not really accessible while in the car, weighs 4,000 pounds, and the transmission is in the ass end and weighs 9,000 pounds. It has stuff on it that was hand made to the point that each car has some unique parts. That's a "major restoration challenge." Buy a 1960's Mercedes with pneumatic self-leveling and locking. A car that a lot of luck and about $200,000.00 might get you where it rolls under its own power. That's major. A Spider? An afternoon with some buddies and a good floor jack and you can be hauling ass around the lakes. Two weeks - including machine shop time - you can refit the entire mechanicals. Easy, simple, fun. A real sports car.

Let's also put the bed this ignorant "loaded on the outside of ships." They haven't put cars on the decks of ships possibly ever. The economics of doing so don't make sense - do you know how few cars you could lash to the deck of a ship? They go inside, in holds designed for cars, with tie-downs and other things. These days they go in containers that do the same thing. FIAT's museum has examples of their transports from the 1950's an onwards. If you've never been on a ship I guess you think it floats around all hollow with a bunch of crap like cars tied on top. If you've never been on or seen a ship I can assure you the last thing they want is a bunch of rolling things that weigh 1700 pounds each tied on top.

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The rust issue. All cars prior to the 1970's rusted, and most cars well into the 1980's. The metals were not galvanized and many cars were not even painted very well. FIAT (or pininfarina) used a crappy steel and didn't paint it very well. The same idiot who wrote the MSN article probably praised Ferraris....made on the same assembly line with the same steel and same lousy paint. And they rusted just the same.

Common as dirt. They made 200,000 or so Spiders. Not common.

[So Cal Mark]

he did praise the Alfa Spider

[bradartigue]

he did praise the Alfa Spider

Because they don't rust I guess. Funny, all of my Alfas rusted with as much zeal as my FIATs. I've owned three aluminum (or partially aluminum) cars and they also rust, because not everything was made of aluminum. It's part of the fun.

If these guys knew anything about FIAT Spiders they'd simplify their statements: brilliantly designed, brilliantly engineered, and assembled with some of the worst quality control imaginable.

[burgandy81]

brilliantly designed, brilliantly engineered, and assembled with some of the worst quality control imaginable.

Brad,

Exceptional summary!

I have been needing a summary like that for my Porsche "frienemies" who occasionally besmirch my Fiat. It must be said that these comments are often made in between discussions of $5,000 Porsche engine rebuilds and $3,500 Porsche clutch jobs which makes it much easier to listen to!

[DanD]

. A Spider? An afternoon with some buddies and a good floor jack and you can be hauling ass around the lakes. Two weeks - including machine shop time - you can refit the entire mechanicals. Easy, simple, fun. A real sports car.

Common as dirt. They made 200,000 or so Spiders. Not common.

Easy to work on, but I have driven a lot of poorly sorted Fiats, so I know first hand they can be hard to master.

FWIW, they are still pretty easy to come by.

[bradartigue]

brilliantly designed, brilliantly engineered, and assembled with some of the worst quality control imaginable.

Brad,

Exceptional summary!

I have been needing a summary like that for my Porsche "frienemies" who occasionally besmirch my Fiat. It must be said that these comments are often made in between discussions of $5,000 Porsche engine rebuilds and $3,500 Porsche clutch jobs which makes it much easier to listen to!

The Porsche crowd isn't so dissimilar from the FIAT crowd. The cars are wildly different, which is fun, but the few who actually work on their own cars know what its like to try to figure out an errant ground or why a gasket keeps leaking, etc. You can always remind them that in the 1970's the Alfa and FIAT Spiders, the Triumphs and MGs were all in the same "class."

[msheldon]

I was 20 in 1967 and my first car was a '61 Alfa Giulietta Spider, tired and rusted. I LOVED it and in 1968 traded it in on a '65 Sunbeam Tiger (with removable hardtop) that was used, but fresh (oh, to have them both back today!) When my in-laws-to-be found out that I had made the irresponsible decision of purchasing the Tiger, (what was considered then to be) a high-powered sports car (read: DANGEROUS) right before I was to marry their beautiful daughter, they threatened to shut the whole deal down! Our marriage (they knew we would have eloped anyway) led to an endless string of new and used sport-oriented cars and motorcycles, including two additional Alfas (one of which was a used step-nose "67 GTV we bought from my younger brother), a new '70 Kawasaki Mach III (what a terror for that time, we put 10,000 miles on it in the summer of 1970, REALLY), and amongst many more varied vehicles, we owned a '73 Fiat Sport Spider, a '72 Fiat Station Wagon (I still have the owners manual), and a '75 Fiat Sport Spider. And most recently, it is a '70 Fiat Sport Spider I picked up from a dentist in Boulder, Colorado four years ago. (I am bringing it along slowly, but surely, having just recently purchased, from a member of this forum, some rare-awesome "period-correct" OZ wheels we think came from FAZA.) In the early 1970's, I worked in two different garages as a foreign car mechanic (not that many of us novitiate mechanics had associate's degrees back then, it was all "Learn-By-Doing) to help pay for college tuition (my wife and I would become art & design educators and me, eventually a school principal and Frank Lloyd Wright Scholar.) So, I was and am, familiar with "old-school" automotive engineering, design, and maintenance.
Thus, when I read this thread, it really struck a chord with me. Specifically, Brad's comments represent observations and realities I have come to recognize over the years and he says it like it really is concerning the topics of rust and reliability (why were there not more than a few of the wand-type indoor car washes when one needed them back in the 60"s and 70's, for those of us who had to drive our awesome cars through the midwest winters' snow and salt attacks on the poorly protected exposed under-chassis parts?) My good buddy and his wife bought a Fiat Sport Spider (1608) back in 1972 and since then, I have admired the design. I have argued with others that it was certainly comparable to the Alfa Spider of the same era, a bit slower accelerating, but the sense of balance was phenomenal, with the trifecta pedigree of Pininfarina as manufacturer, Tom Tjaarda as designer, and Aurelio Lampredi as engine designer. And the interior is a jewel to ride in and experience, knowing that the ergonomics represented real advancement and civility for similar cars of the era. I truly enjoy and appreciate the interior (and all of the working parts) of our spider every time I drive it.
Yes, there are still many Fiat Sport Spiders out there and for that along with the ill-deserved rust and reliability reputation, they are thankfully very affordable as collector cars with huge value to those who truly understand and appreciate them. I am not trying to make a pile of money with my car, I just really enjoy owning and driving the thing, knowing that at some point, their true value in terms of dollars will happen for those who look at ownership as an investment.
Sorry to ramble, but I could not help myself! (We also owned a new 1972 Ford Pinto Runabout.)
Dr. Mark Sheldon

[baltobernie]

... a new '70 Kawasaki Mach III (what a terror for that time, ...

All Go and no Whoa, that's for sure. Sounded like a berserk air-raid siren. I love the smell of Blendzall in the morning

I'd like to restore an H1, but they are really difficult to find.

I tell civilians who ask about my Spider that it is one of the very few cars of its era that can be driven, unmodified, on today's roads. That speaks volumes about its design and engineering. And rust? You guys are all correct about its prevalence in those days.