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I had a 74 model year. It was real fun to drive but slow. Driving in pouring rain with the top off but not getting wet was a shocker. The quality was cheap but can’t say had too many mechanical issues with it. It was my second Fiat. You could say I was ahead of my time. I can’t imagine getting in one of those today.
Location: West Los Angeles and Rancho Palos Verdes
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Mother had one -- lots of fun, especially when mom let me shift the gears. My father did various mods to the engine to get the power up a bit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it a fairly simple affair to mod the engines in these cars?
Old-ish thread, but, I had a 1979 and I loved that car! It was the first car I ever owned. I bought it new in the summer of 1980 in San Francisco at the old (now gone) Menzies Fiat on Geary, at around 9th or 10th Ave, IIRC. For $7,500, again IIRC.
I put 90,000 miles on it before I sold it, and it was very dependable. The only problem I ever had with it was the starter, that failed once. That was it, otherwise with regular maintenance she was a great running car. The VIN was, again IIRC, this is by memory, 128AS10116081. Light metallic blue, it was a pretty car that handled great and got good MPGs.
Old-ish thread, but, I had a 1979 and I loved that car! It was the first car I ever owned. I bought it new in the summer of 1980 in San Francisco at the old (now gone) Menzies Fiat on Geary, at around 9th or 10th Ave, IIRC. For $7,500, again IIRC.
I put 90,000 miles on it before I sold it, and it was very dependable. The only problem I ever had with it was the starter, that failed once. That was it, otherwise with regular maintenance she was a great running car. The VIN was, again IIRC, this is by memory, 128AS10116081. Light metallic blue, it was a pretty car that handled great and got good MPGs.
Fun times - 35 years ago!
I found a pic of my car, a 1979 Fiat X1/9. I loved this car! Bought in the summer of 1980, I put 90,000 mostly trouble-free miles on it before selling it because my wife and I started a family, and the X1/9 is not a family car.
That's my younger brother, Michael on the left and me on the right. The exact date was 11 April 1983 in front of our family home that was at 1124 Girard St., San Francisco -- on the day we left on our six week cross-country camping road trip to Colorado Springs, Chicago, Niagara Falls, Latham NY (my hometown), West Hartford CT (junior high and high school), Boston, Cape Cod, NYC, Washington DC, OBX NC, Tampa, Key West, Miami, then Ozona TX and Santa Barbara CA before returning back home to SF CA.
Another X1/9 memory is about the good fuel economy it got back then. I used to keep a fuel log (still do), so I had the details of a drive, 330 miles from San Francisco to Santa Barbara — a UCSB Gaucho here.
I left at 2AM so US-101 was empty. I averaged about 100 MPH, and the car got 25 MPG. Pretty good.
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