Doug Miller wrote:
In article ,
says...
Once upon a time, I owned a Fiat. One of Italy's finest [fill in the
blank]. One cold, misty, and altogether miserable day, I was under the
car trying to fix something or other. The wrench slipped off the bolt
and I crunched a knuckle or two on some unforgiving piece of steel. Now
I am rubbing dirt and grease into my wounds to staunch the bleeding
while my mouth is expressing my dismay in some of my finest, most
obscene curses of the car, the day and my bad luck. Some motion caught
my eye and I turned to the side to see two pairs of nicely shined shoes
and the bottoms of well pressed trousers. I rolled out from under the
car to snarl at two JWs with eyes like saucers and mouths agape. One
finally found his voice long enough to apologize for their bad timing.
I said something like "no ****, Little Beaver" and they hurried off.
Made the day a little better.
no more Fiats,
jo4hn
Boy, that brings back a few memories. I used to own a Fiat X-1/9.
Beautiful car, loads of fun to drive, but boy, oh boy, there were some
elements of *dumb* design there.
I agree, no more Fiats. FIAT = Fix It Again Today. Fix It Again
Tomorrow.
Which one did you have?
124 Sport Coupe. Absolutely the best drive I ever had. You want peace,
quiet, reliability? Buy a Toyota. I invested in a shop manual. Stupid
things would break: the valve for the heater leaked coolant on the
passenger side floor, the gas tank filler hose would sporadically spring
a leak, the wiper gear broke, I could clean the jets in the WEBER carb
in about 15 minutes, etc. I got about 50k miles on it before it started
using more oil than gas. Sold it to two brothers who wanted to know if
the tranny was in good shape. Jeeeaaapers.
On the good side, it had a twin OHC engine that was redlined at 8k
(IIRC). Four wheel disk brakes, 5 speed tranny, honest to God bucket
seats. If only it could have held together for a few years. Sigh.
twitch,
jo4hn