I go to San Diego a lot for business trips and when I was there in December I had a morning free so I went to Mission Trails Park for a hike to start the day. On my way back to downtown, I saw a driveway just full of Fiat Spiders. Normally I would just slow down and look quickly but the owner was outside washing them, so I pulled a U-turn and just parked and walked over. I talked to him for a few minutes, I guess he has been buying and selling Fiat Spiders since something like the early 1980s? He said he exports them to Europe, mostly Germany where he has a connection that resells them. He knew a ton about them and was telling me about the ones he had right now. I snapped a quick pic below, but the Google Street View pic is about the same (both from 12/15 strangely). Inside the garage he had another early Spider, plus a Lancia Scorpion.
They were all pretty rough cosmetically, but he said they all start and run. And not so rough that they wouldn't make good restoration candidates for someone who wanted to. It blows my mind how little rust they get in SoCal even though they sit outside all day (for years if you look at the Streetview history) with exposed metal!
Just thought it was totally weird and awesome to find a yard full of Spiders, plus to have the guy out front while I was driving by!
