What is stock ?

[84pininfarinablack]

How about a forum or part of this website that documents What is stock for Fiat Spiders of the different years.
We are all putting back together cars. Many of us going back to original the best we can and the rest that are not can also use a healthy reference as to what it should or used to look like. These are things I would love to know and cannot find anywhere online.. and with all you fiat geniuses im sure collectively it will tell the story.

What I want to know.
What colors my car came in stock. Exterior and interior
what color tops came stock.
Seat options. Are my seats leather or vinyl. I cant tell. I know they are from wrong year.
Are my tan door panels supposed to not match my tan dashboard?
Why did my fiat spider come with a center console in light oak? (no darker wood underneath it. )
What years body panels and parts are perfectly compatible with which years.
What did my original carpet color look like new ? maybe pics of new cars are available. .
Did my car come with a/c stock?
I have lots of questions and i have been using the " most of the ones i see" theory.
but it does not tell the whole story. What do you all think. can this be done in a forum?

[So Cal Mark]

sounds like that would be a reference section rather than a discussion area. One problem is how do you document it at this point? So many changes were running changes rather than model year changes.

[84pininfarinablack]

it may take the input from dozens of people to get the finished answers.. Unless you know it all yourself.. you probably do.
a discussion area would be good for the input. But yes a reference section would be awesome. Be alot of work though.

[gigi]

84pininfarinablack,
When the final adoption papers came thru, I too had some of the very same questions you're asking.
The closest answer I got was the original paint color of my car. See the sticker on the underside of your trunk lid.
(If it is still there). I was told that the seats of my car were leather (as was plain to see). Check for 'crackling'.
Vinyl does not 'crackle'; it just cracks. (Think of nice shoes). I chose to not replace crackling leather with cheap
vinyl as a personal preference; like scars of battle. Use a leather conditioner regularly. You can tell if your seats
were patched with vinyl if the colors of the panels don't match. Sun, heat, elements in general are torture to
plastic of any kind. That explains your dash, doors, carpets and console. Many parts & body sections can be
interchanged; best to check with your mechanic. I slowly but surely discovered many of the answers to my
questions must be buried in someone's shed, abandoned warehouse, packed up in a box at the bottom of a
rubbish yard. Like my Pop-pop, these pieces of history are still alive. I'm just glad they're still kicking.
(Minus a few limbs, pieced together, falling apart, choking on smoke, a little tipsy sometimes, looking
nothing like pictures of himself as a young strapping hottie, but kicking none-the-less)

[84pininfarinablack]

iap has alot of good i nfo in the new catalog..
shows what came with what years on many subjects..

[BEEK]

i parted out over 1000 fiats from 1980-2003, i think i have seen almost everything, stock and otherwise. i think i might be able to answer your questions. i will try my best anyway