so how?

[mdrburchette]

In 1978 I was dating a fella that drove a 69 model Spider. He was so particular about this car I had to put my feet flat in the floorboard, not touch the dash, and gently open and close the door. He never revved it over 3k rpms and checked the oil every time he put gas in it. I think he was in love with this car. I thought it was cute, and so was he. Years later, we married...then divorced, and I got the Fiat instead of the new car. I ended up selling it to make ends meet in 1986. Almost 10 years later, I was married to Ron and was in search of a Chevrolet dually. Instead, I ran across my 72 Fiat. Ron and I completely restored it, little by little and now, I am very particular with my car and I might be in love with it.

[Gunsmith]

Katsi, would those be surf board racks on top of your Colt?

Now the long story.
I was newly married about a year and not much past my 19th birthday and dying for some kind of convertible. Being in South Florida I had a lot of friends with the full spectrum of incomes, dirt poor to OH My God! One of my wealthy friends/mentors was talking to me while I cleaned his yacht. He had amazing cars that he let me drive since I was 16. He said if he didn't have any money he would buy an MG like he had years before in college. (He was 6'2") I thought well OK he is bigger than me and I don't have any money so the car should fit? Back then there where only classifieds ads mostly with no pictures.(How did we buy anything?) I looked at tons of MG's and walked away from each one thinking my friend Mike was an idiot that got rich by accident, what pieces of crap these cars where! Wishing I could afford some American Iron convertible I soon realized this was just not going to happen on my income. So depressed and driving down the road I noticed this little black convertible with a for sale sign in the window at a run down trailer park. It had a broken windshield, a ragged out top, and a straight pipe coming out of the side of the car in front of the rear tire but the price was right! I gave the guy a $100 deposit and told him I had my wife's car sold and I would be back in a couple of days to pick up the car. When I returned he said he got a better offer from someone else and wanted another $500 bucks. I explained to him where and how to stick it! He reluctantly gave my money back as obviously it was just a poor attempt to get more money from a kid. The problem was however I had already driven the car and was now hooked on Spiders. Another friend of mine was the local Alpha dealer and offered me great deals on their Spiders but they were still too expensive. The couple of Fiats he had were gorgeous and still too expensive. So I looked and looked in the papers. I finally found one at a dealer and went down with my young bride to check it out. When I got there the guy takes one look at us and says "This is not a buy here pay here lot Kid." I said "Then what is a salesman like you doing here then" and he got the point. (Clearly I have been a smart ass my whole life. So then he asked "Well just how do you expect to pay for this car?" I asked for his manger to make the deal and finally got him to the price I wanted and then my new wife says "He was going to pay more for than that for a crappy one" then he said "Oh well that is not the total price" (Thanks honey) So after much more negotiating we finally got back down to where it was supposed to be. I then preceded to restore the whole car having no knowledge of how to do so. It had rust in the usual places and came out OK for a couple of kids.

It was originally black but I decided it would look better in a Burgundy metallic from the Corvettes that year.
[URL=http://s806.photobucket.com/albums ... .jpg[/img] The finished product. [url][URL=http: ... .jpg[/img] [/url]

I loved the car but had to sell it for the down payment on our first house because she wouldn't get rid of her horse.
Then I went through a bunch of the little convertibles and started down the American muscle road. Ten years later after getting rid of the horses the wife and house all in one shot I really missed the Fiat!

So another ten years later or so I have another one of each (Except the horses)and was happier than before and joined this forum.

Whew that was long.....

[tonyfromjersey]

Wow, those are some great stories. I had been thinking for a while about getting a car to tinker with, something with a rag top. Always something else to do of course. I heard about a neighbor who has an Alfa Spider in his garage, I went to look at it. It hadn't run in years but was in decent shape, but, alas, no back seat for the kids and dog. I started looking some more and got hooked on the Spider.

I found one in PA, offered the guy 1200, and towed it home in between military trips. Wife took one look and thought I was nuts. I had a crew chief buddy of mine come over and help me breathe life into it. That was 2 years ago. Since then, body work done, some interior work done, water pump, timing belt, electronic ignition conversion, etc. It looks great and runs well.

Wife still thinks I'm nuts, but likes riding in the car. Kids love it, so does the dog.

Neighbor still has the Alfa and it still doesn't run, but I'm getting his motorcycle next week.

[Tersta]

I actually came across a man, wife and two small children that were living 80 miles from me. They were (are) very poor, lived in a very old house and he was barely surviving off of ebay sales from items he bought at yard sales. He was talking to me about eating rice or cereal for diner a few times a week and then he began talking about how terrible the bathroom was. (being i am a contractor) House was built in 1895, only had a tub and toilet and it was the only bath in the house. I felt bad for they guy and i remodeled his entire bathroom with a stand up shower, new sink and toilet, tiled the floors, shower and walls, a 10K value. All for free, I provided the materials too. I just felt like doing something super nice for someone that was in need. So i did it. You can't imagine the excitement on their faces when i was done. Well he happen to have a fiat spider jammed in the corner of his garage with a cover over it. Didn't run or anything. Something he bartered for years earlier. So being he had no funds to fix it or pay me. He gave me the spider. Thats how i got bit by the spider.

Ok yes I am a girl and this one made me cry.

Tersta

[SLOSpider]

My Dad had one when I was 14, 1976 and I took it out for a joy ride one night, loved the sound of that exhaust! Years later and several cars I found one for sale for 1500.00 in 1988. I went to look at a red one but the guy also had a newly painted blue one I liked better. I ended up getting the blue one for the same price and off I went. I have had 5 Fiat spiders with my latest on I picked up 2 weeks ago and going through replacing a burnt up wire and just about everything else. Here is the one I sold 3 years ago to get my motorcycle, The new one should do her one better when Im done but I miss ole yeller....

[Ken]

It was 1978 and I wanted to get a convertible, the convertible market in the US pretty much shut down about that time so convertibles were scarce but of the ones I saw I liked the Fiat the best.



Found this 74 in Tacoma, paid about $1500 over the blue book price for it, really liked that car.. But!!








Paid the car off and totaled it in the same month, I was on my way to pick up a set of Koni shocks when it happened.
The insurance co still paid me $1000 over the blue book price, a few years earlier I had worked at a Triumph dealership and I heard that two of the people I had worked with had a Fiat dealership so I took the money I got for the 74 and bought the 80 that I have now, I got to drive it off the show room floor.







Ken

[spiderrey]

That yellow one is sweet

[So Cal Mark]

wow, fascinating stories

[perthling]

My parents bought a new 1974 124CC before I was born. I was brought home from the hospital in it. It travelled with us from Victoria to Western Australia in the 1980s. I learnt to drive in in in the early 1990s, it was restored in the late 1990s, and I used it as a wedding car in 2005. My mother then 'donated' it to me, and I was able to bring my daughter (and more recently, my son) home in it after their births as well.

In 1997 I had some cash, and, loving the 124 coupe I decided to get myself a Spider (not an easy task when they weren't sold new in Australia). My '74 was imported from California, converted to RHD and was my daily driver in my final year of uni, then was shipped with me to the east coast and driven from Sydney to Melbourne (approx 1000km) and back in 1999.

SInce then I've owned a number of CCs, but am now trying to rationalise my collection of cars and parts, back to the family CC, my CS1 and the newly acquired Familiare.

[joelbert2k]

I don't think I can compete with some of these stories but here's mine.
Way, way back in high school most all my friend had Detroit iron, drag racers. They all read Hot Rod and looked at ways to jack their cars up (called lifting now) so they could fit bigger rear tires under them. I had an old Ford and got caught up in some of that, this was Southern California in the 60's after all, but I read Road & Track and Car and Driver more than Hot Rod. My best friend that lived across the street from me bought 1st and Ford Cortina then after about a year he traded it for an MG Midget. Both cars were a lot of fun and I started looking around. I was interested in the usual British things but was a little leery of the used ones, not sure why, and new ones were too expensive. Came real close to a TR-250 but backed out at the last minute.
Fast forward a couple of years and I'm now married. The wife brought along her 55 Pontiac to go with my 55 Ford so we figured we needed something new or at least newer. We answered an ad for a 68 or 69 Spider (too many years ago to remember) all we had to do was assume the loan. Well, as things go we couldn't find anyone to pick up a loan for two 19 year old kids on a used foreign car. We both fell in love with that car on the test drives and so we went to a Fiat dealer to see what we could swing. We looked at a new 70 124 Sport Spider as well as a 70 124 Sport Coupe. Well, as fate would have it we bought the coupe and the wife wound up preggers about 6 months later. I went into the Army about 2 weeks before she found out, that was REAL lucky as neither one of us had insurance at the time. We eventually had to sell the car to pay for them to join me in West Germany and had been with out a Fiat for along time. During one of my tours in Germany a friend had me take care of his X1/9 for a few weeks. Man I wanted that car! But with now 2 kids and still in the Army there was no way. Army pay back then was dreadful, just above poverty level.
I been out of the Army for a long time now and the kids are grown and gone and hadn't given any thoughts about sports cars let alone Fiats for many years. Then one day about a year and half age my wife pointed out an ad for a Spider and all the old desires came rushing back. We called the guy and went to see it, about a 20 mins drive away, knowing that unless it was a complete pile of rust I was going to buy it. The car ran fairly well and stopped okay so I gave him $2000 and drove it home in an Arizona monsoon downpour with a big ol' grin on my face and haven't regretted it yet!
Joel

[htchevyii]

I've been into cars my whole life, my first car was a 1962 ChevyII that was purchased when I was 15 as a $600. basket case. I spent 2 years fixing it up and I've owned at least one Nova ever since, (a 1969 was my daily driver for years and I still own a 1964 with a built 350 from that 1962 that was my first car). I sold the 1969 to my Dad when I bought my first house 6 years ago.
My wife wanted a sporty car and since I don't like new cars, it had to be a classic. Porsche 356 Speester, (kit car) or VW Karmann Ghia were her favorites. I actually purchased a Ghia, but after tearing it down, decided that I'd be money ahead to just buy a nicer one. I was looking for another, when my friend told me of a Fiat that was for sale at his parents' neighbor's house five hours away for $1200. I wasn't really familiar with Fiats at that point and could only picture the x1/9, which I don't care for the looks of, but he said it wasn't boxy and he thought it was cool, (he still didn't know what model it was). He wanted to buy it, but his wife said no. The guy sent me some pictures and it looked cool, so we went and checked it out.
The car poped out of first gear, had an crappy paint job, intermittent ign switch and rotten tires, but ran good and didn't have any rust! I called my wife to let her know she had a new car. Over the next year, I painted the car and did a mild restoration. The car was finished one week before the Mirafiori Oregon 2008 event. When we left it we had only put 75 miles on it, but it racked up 500 miles without a hitch! I said I was burned out and didn't want to restore another car for awhile, but.... a month or two later I saw an ad for a 1972 Spider on Craigslist. I called and it had been in a barn since 1984 and was only $300! I wanted a car to autocross so I bought it! This one ended up being alot more work since it sat so long and is mostly togeather, but needs some bugs worked out. My recent house purchase/remodel and move put the kibosh on finishing it, but at least I didn't have to sell any cars this time!

[Zippy]

On October 19, 1970 I was on my way to buy an Opel Kadett. I was on my motorcycle with $800 in my wallet when I was hit by a Mustang making a left turn. Nine weeks in the hospital with multiple broken bones and the Opel was gone. When I got out of the hospital I went looking for a car. I came across an MGC-GT and a Porsche Speedster at a local used car dealer. Since I was in the Navy at the time and living in San Francisco I decided on the MG as I felt it would be safer left parked on the street while we were on our 2 – 3 week cruises. I went to the bank to get the money for the MG and when I got back the car was sitting in the driveway with steam coming out from under the hood. I had heard stories about the MGC overheating but the salesman assured me this one was fine, yeah, right.

So off I go looking for another car. I had heard about these Fiats but never saw one. I was looking at an MGB-GT at another dealer when he showed me a 1969 Fiat 124 Sport Coupe. It was perfect. The lady that traded it in wanted a car with a bigger back seat. It only had 3000 miles on it. Same color as Curly’s. Yes it was love. My girlfriend and I took several camping trips with that car. Driving around on the back roads of California was a lot of fun. All that fun came to a screeching halt late one night. A drunk driver was trying to out run the police and hit 17 cars before they stopped him. Mine was number 9. It was parked outside a friends house at 2AM. He hit the left front fender and did very extensive damage. When I got it back from the body shop the new fender was a quarter inch taller than the right. Shortly after I got it back the valves started making a loud tapping noise so I called a tow truck to take it to the mechanic. He hooked it up with some new kind of straps and I was following him to the mechanic. He hit a bump at a street construction site and the front of the car flew up about 3 feet and then crashed down on the ground. The driver stopped but the Fiat didn’t and slammed into the back of the tow truck. Then the tow bar fell down on top of the hood. Yes they fixed it again but it was never the same after that. I sold it when I left San Francisco in 73.

Fast forward to 1976. My daughter was just born and we brought her home in our 63 VW Bug. We decided we needed a better car. We were on our way to a friends house when I spotted a mint green Fiat in a dealers lot. It was a 72 Sport Coupe. He was asking $1800 for it. We took it for a spin around the neighborhood and went back to the dealer. My wife didn’t think I was going to buy it but I surprised her and offered him $1500. He came back with $1750 and I said no, the most I could pay was $1500 and I would bring him cash in 15 minutes. He took it! Did I say I loved my 69? I mean I reeeaaally loved my 72. We now lived in Washington near Seattle. We drove that car all over the place. Ocean Shores and Hurricane Ridge. Grand Coulee Dam, Mount Rainier, Spokane and Victoria, BC. A few trips down I-5 to San Francisco and LA. Then on February 14, 1980 we had a snow storm over night. There was about 2-3” of snow on the road so I went the back way to work to avoid the traffic. I came over the crest of the hill and the car in front of me suddenly moved over to the side of the road. As he did I saw this car flying up the hill in the center of the road forcing everyone over to the side. One car went into the ditch, the car in front of me hit his front end and stopped abruptly. I could have gone around him but he spun back out into the road and hit my right side. This pushed me across the road into the other ditch and another car. As I was getting out of my car another car came over the hill and just drove off the road right into me. I had to jump over the roof to get out of the way. I was able to drive back home but the car was totaled.

Now it’s 1998 and my neighbor brings home 2 Spiders. He starts working on them all the time. He gets the 78 stripped down to bare metal and fixes all the body work. I helped him with a few things and watched his progress. I moved away from there and a couple of years later I drove by to check on a lot I stilled owned. The Fiat was sitting in the neighbors yard with a for sale sign on it. Turns out they got divorced and she got the car. I bought it from her. It was in great condition and I felt I got a good deal. I really like this car but I would love to have a 69 or 72 Sport Coupe again.

I still would like to have an MGC-GT but they are really rare and very expensive.

Al

[jfranks]

I learned to drive in 1980 on my Dad's 76 model. He sold it shortly after (probably didn't trust me in it). I have been looking for a while and "lurking" on this board. I bought mine a month ago-1980 model. I got in, smelled that smell, and knew I had to have it. Sheer bliss since then. I am a mechanical idiot and hoping to pick up a few things on the boards. Thanks for all the informative posts!

[Burningmustard]

Last summer I started casually looking for a convertible, my first car was a Dodge 600 convertible. I was considering everything. I was searching MGs and Alfas mainly, but not for any good reason. I mentioned it to my Dad and he said MGs are okay, but he would go with something else. I then remember that he had a couple of Fiats back in the 70’s (actually they were my mom’s cars).

My parents had a 1974 Spider and then traded it in on a 1976, the year I was born. For the first few years of my life our family cars were a 1976 Fiat Spider and a 1971 Corvette Convertible. Quite different from the vehicles families have today. We lived in Dallas at the time, but all our family was in Kansas City so we made that drive often. My mom would tell stories of dad driving, her sitting on the passenger floor, the golden retriever on the passenger seat, and me laying where the convertible top would go in the corvette all the way from Dallas to K.C. Not sure where the luggage and xmas presents went.

Anyway, back to the Fiat search. At this point I was sure I wanted a Fiat Spider, and after checking this forum, I decided an ’82 would be best for me. I saw one listed on Craigslist for $3,200 and didn’t inquire. A little while later I saw it listed for $3,000, and I shot the guy an email. This was on a Monday, and I told the guy that I had a busy week, and wouldn’t be able to make it over till the next Saturday. I didn’t expect him to the hold the car for me, and I would call Friday night, and if it was still available I would come by and check it out.

I call Friday night and the guy says he’s got good news and bad news. He says he had the car sold earlier that day (money in hand) and the buyer wasn’t going to take a test but then decided to and during the drive an oil gasket blew and oil went everywhere. Well I guess this scared the buyer off, so the car was back on the market, but the owner had to replace the gasket and it wouldn’t be ready to drive for a day or two. The owner said he had just got a gasket seal kit and replaced them all except for this one. Well, apparently he wanted the car gone, because he called around noon the next day and the car was ready.

I went over with cash in hand, drove it and had to have it. The owner came down a little more on the price, and I took it home.

[Danno]

In Soviet Russia, Fiat car find you.

Seriously, i wasn't interested. it just sort of rolled into my back yard and inserted itself into my life. now I can't get rid of the dang thing. a few weeks ago I got a phone call from a guy saying "you don't know me, but I saw the old car in your driveway, are you interested in selling it?" I've got the sickness so bad that i didn't even spit out the smart words that any rational person would use in that situation: "Sure, if the price is right" ....nope. I'm an idiot. I said "Nah, not interested. I love that car." Later, I was trying to decide when I lost control. It's all fuzzy, but I remember telling my Bro-in-law that I'd do some research on the Fiat he had sitting at the shop a block from my house. I found Mirafiori, saw some pictures of what they can look like. As we were towing the car across the street by the front bumper I remember sitting in the nasty driver's seat and looking at the floor all covered with leaves and crap, thinking about how this car might not even be worth the scrap metal. But the momentum of the illness had already set in.

There is not a modification or a dollar spent on this car that isn't immediately preceded and followed with a fear that it's all a waste. Then I drive the crappy thing down the highway on a crisp fall afternoon with the heater on high and "route 66" playing on the stereo. For those few seconds I forget what a heap of junk it is. i forget the rust spots, the torn interior, the coat hanger trunk opening system, the washer fluid bag sitting in a rubbermaid tub, the tires with lot rot, the botched bondo patch attempt on the truck lock delete....for those few seconds it's no longer the anchor holding me down, it's the cure to everything else that was REALLY holding me down.

stupid freaking piece of junk. I love it.