Fiats are kinda a "love it or leave it" proposition. If you love 'em, you try to save 'em. If you don't love 'em, you won't have that one for long. It is definitely a labor of love, but the cars are probably some of the easiest to work on, offer the satisfaction of DIY with noticeable results, plus the sheer joy of top-down, 5-speed, hi-revving fun on twisty-turny roads, and as someone has said parts are cheap compared to most other makes (and even cheaper on earlier models than later models often, which is kinda weird).
My vote is keep it, address the mechanical issues, most of which you can easily do yourself, and decide how far you want to take things. My experience has been that they make great little daily drivers that always get noticed (even if most people think they're an MG) and I find it really hard to have a bad day if I have a little seat time in my Spider. But then, I don't have a lick of sense, having 7 of them sitting around and my daily driver being probably one of the rustiest cars you've ever seen that still rolls down the road.

Im tackling a worse example than that purely because I wont admit to the wife that I shouldnt have bought it

I started off by stripping it down and building from the ground up. Get the suspension etc done first so you can move it around easily. Suspension parts are not that expensive, and even on a poor car most parts can be reused.refurbished. Once you get started you wont want to stop. Sometimes it gets overwelming if you look at the "big picture"

deftone wrote:Im tackling a worse example than that purely because I wont admit to the wife that I shouldnt have bought it

I started off by stripping it down and building from the ground up. Get the suspension etc done first so you can move it around easily. Suspension parts are not that expensive, and even on a poor car most parts can be reused.refurbished. Once you get started you wont want to stop. Sometimes it gets overwelming if you look at the "big picture"

I'm reminded of Kenny Roger's "The Gambler" -
You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.

We can add it all up when the project's done. Never a good idea to keep tabs during the rework. Problem is, Fiat guys never know when to "fold 'em".