My Fiat History...

[filipm]

I recently purchased a 1980 Fiat Spider after an on and off search for a few years (never pulled the trigger due to lack of garage). Found one in Wisconsin, I'm in Illinois, went to see it, made an offer on the spot and picked it up a few days later. Great looking car, had a restoration at one point to some degree, but the all that the PO, who owned it for about 5 years, knew about the Fiat was that he bought it was a family after the previous PO passed away and the title said it was previously in Arizona (probably why little to no rust being up north).

After finding this site, I somehow was able to search my VIN on the Fiat Registry... and there it was. Listed there was my Fiat with a little history of how before the Arizona owner, a guy in Vegas owned the car, did a full restoration; repainted after going to bare metal, interior, rebuilt engine, new trans. Then the Zona owner added exhaust, fixed a few things here and there, then sold it to a guy in Wisconsin in '06 and note the mileage as 48000; I bought it at 54. I was able to track that owner as a former member of this site and found pics of my now car here.

Long story short. Pretty trippy to be able to track down, randomly may I add, information on a 38 year old vehicle and have some idea as to what has/hasnt been done and where it stands as I go forward.

Amazing to have a community with such a wealth of information like this where I've already learned so much!

Looking forward to the ride.

Fil

[SanJoseSteve]

While cleaning out a cabinet in the garage earlier this year my daughter noticed my collection of Fiat dealer documents from the original owner of the car. It was purchased in Iowa back in July of 1972. She asked if I had ever Goggled the guy’s name to see if he’s still around. (I guess kids today do that all the time.) Anyway, To my amazement, I found him in about 5 minutes and shot him an email along with a photo of his original Fiat Owners ID Card. 24 hours Iater I got a phone call from the guy. “Al” is now 82 years old and had a few good stories about his car. He told me he traded in a Fiat 1200 convertible for the ’72 124 because he wanted more power. The 1st thing he wanted to know was if I had any trouble with the motor.

He said that when he bought the car new, he only got about halfway home (~30 miles away) when it started knocking. He pulled over and noticed a trail of oil behind the car. Opening the hood he found that the oil filter had spun off and was resting upright on the belly pan. The oil had been pumped out of the motor onto the highway! A passing trucker stopped and gave him a few quarts of oil. He reinstalled the filter, turned around and drove back to the dealer with the engine knocking. The dealer gave him a Fiat 850 as a loaner to get home. 3 weeks later they called to let him know that they had rebuilt the motor and to come get it! Can you imagine that? No Freakin way would that happen today right?

Anyway, Al was a nice guy to talk to. Said he had installed the chrome luggage rack on the back to pick up a fender for a Desoto in Sioux Falls SD. Interestingly enough, he wanted to know why I ditched the original steel wheels/hubcaps for the ones I have now. (Cromodora CD-3’s) He though the car looked better with the steel rims! Go figure…….Ha!

-Steve (the Fiat driving) Ferrari

[chrisg]

Cool stories there. It is interesting how the world with these cars is rather small in many times in fairly short order you can find out a lot about your gear cars’ stories. Many have also changed hands among old friends in the Fiat “family” for decades also. Good stuff.

[sonosml]

Great Story! I'm in Iowa and every once in a while I log in and search on the word Iowa to see what comes up. Just found your story. Love it. Mike

[18Fiatsandcounting]

I agree, great story! In my case, my '69 124 spider was bought new by my dad, and he just happened to pick it up from the dealership on my 6th birthday in 1969. The deal was: If I did all the maintenance on the family cars (including washing and waxing), I would get this car when I went off to college. I kept my end of the deal, and so did my dad, and so now the '69 sits in my garage, waiting for a pleasure drive now and then. And, I still have the original price estimate and final sales invoice from when my dad picked up the car almost 50 years ago. Along with the factory warranty, although I'm pretty sure the car is now out of warranty...

-Bryan