RE: SOTW: Fiat X1/9

[R5GTTGAZ]

cintwam16 said:

Mine is the following:

5am, I wake up alone. As always.

I pour my cup of tea from a 60's inspired lightweight stainless steel teapot into my retro cup and bertone saucer - I adjourn to the sitting room and sit back in a 70s Pop Design Egg chair and fap my way through a copy of Auto Express. From 1920.


Outside the morning is crisp and clear, much like the 10 year old unused condom I carry around with me, and I pull open the garage door to reveal my pride and joy.

I fire up the classic, bertone inspired 70s no 60s no 70s designed and inspired lightweight Lotus inspired but bertone designed replica and light (weight) my great pipe and reverse out onto the street.

Neighbours twitch the curtains as I blip the throttle gently on the dual-carbed lightweight, classic, old and therefore better, rusty inspired and bertone designed straight 6 and I allow myself a smile and a small increase in girth as I think of the fantastic mission I am about to undertake.

In short, I am about to drive to the shops on my own. If this mission were a car it would probably be stripped down and race prepped, possibly taking inspiration from a bygone era, such as the 60s, and maybe it would be designed by an Italian, like Bertone for instance.

I drive like an era bygone and therefore better. I wasn't alive then but I'd imagine the rust, unreliability, bad performance, uncomfortableness and poor residuals of the 60s are much better than today.

Centimetres become metres as I ease out the lightweight berone lotus inspired clutch and then metres become almost a mile before my perfect morning is ruined by a modern day Chav type uneduacated, thatcher inspired but Bliar designed, shouting out 'Look at that prick in the old stter' at me.

I'm flacid and ashamed and drive home a broken man and want to get home to the comfort of some re-runs of The Sweeney, Some Mothers Do Ave eM and isn't it aint arf Ot Mum? And Mum.

70s lotus, stripped out Bertone, lightweight and inspired and designed, race prepped. Go-Kart.




MR2.

[stephen300o]

mechsympathy said:

stephen300o said:

griffter said:

The 1300's are very pretty. I'm afraid the 1500s with their awful bumpers and higher engine cover are ruined. Abarth wide body versions and the incredible Dallara looked fanstastic.

Dallara,

Abarth,

Home brew racer,

I'll stick with a plain 1500 I think

I'm with Griffter. That Abarth is the mutts doodas, and the Dallara is gorgeous.

Might like this then,

Picture supplied courtesy of pixelpimp. with thanks.

And some here,
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://ww...

Edited by stephen300o on Friday 16th January 20:12

[bored-of-coding]

I've still got mine after 20 years ..

[Fire99]

TomJS said:

stephen300o said:

Fantastic car, second best car I've owned, despite the trouble.
Early ones are best,

That looks sensational!

ace looking car!!

[MadmanO/T People]

Back in 1991-92, I had a 1980 X-1/9 with the 1.5 litre motor (same as used in the Strada). Loved the car and the handling but the damn thing just kept falling apart faster than I could put it back together.

I had the gearbox rebuilt after reverse gear went out (took the garage two months to do it!), replaced the alternator (found one from a breakers that came from a Yugo), replaced brakes, replaced battery, welded fuel tank after it had sprung a leak, rebuilt distributor, rebuilt carburettor, patched minor rust holes and replaced snapped timing belt. After the second timing belt snapped just a month later, I decided it was time to get rid of the Fiat.

Replaced it with a Renault 9. Out of the frying pan, into the fire!


Cheers,
Madman of the People

[hirsty27]

That's looks a great example of a Fiat X1/9!!..,.......another time and place I'd strongly consider buying it.


One of my friends has a couple of these cars,...one example is quite a 'rusty shed'-(as is quite often the case with these cars,..unfortunatly..),..and the other is a 'kitted up' purple coloured 'very good' example.

My friend said-(having driven both the Fiat X1/9 and the mk1 Toyota MR2) that the Fiat actually holds itself very well in the handling stakes,.....however reliability and bad corrosion problems/issues kill of lots of the X1/9's,..they seem quite a bit more fragile.

Having owned a couple of Mk1 MR2's myself-(and knowing how much they can cost you if you need to repair sills or underfloors) I'd 'certainly' do 'stloads' of research into the car before going ahead with any possible purchase.


Very good SOTW!!..,.......can you now find a Lancia Beta Montecarlo-(another mid-engined 70's car) for under a grand??,.......now there's a challenge!!..

Edited by hirsty27 on Friday 16th January 17:30

[Mark Smith]

uriel said:

Does anyone know what happned to Jimbro1000 who used to post here?

He used had a Dallara that he used to race in some UK Italian race series. He had a blog which detailed the build, testing and racing of the car and its Uno Turbo conversion. It was pretty grim reading the amount of troubles he had and the money he sunk into the car, but it was a fabulous looking thing.

Jimbro has still got the Dallara. Its in a state of slow rebuild at the moment over at wolfdirectracing. I heard he'd intended to race it eventually.

[Ferg]

"But the X1/9 wasn’t Bertone bunging together a supercar copy years after the exotica dried up, oh no. Bear this in mind: Ferrari’s first mid-engined car was the Dino which cropped up in 1968."...just one year after the launch of the mid-engined Cox GTM.


Important X1/9 fact: A six foot tall adult CAN ride in the front boot curled up.
However, he'll wish he hadn't trod in that dogst in the pub car park.

Edited by Ferg on Friday 16th January 17:33

[fourwheelsteer]

horton said:

I have always loved the looks of the X19 - but now I am getting old I just think about how much I would not like to crash one - surely everyone who crashes one dies?

The X1/9 was designed to meet some proposed (but never enacted?) American Federal crash regulations so, as others have said, the centre section is very strong. Of course that was on new cars on 20-something cars full of rust...

I'd love to drive a decent X1/9. If only FIAT had developed it and kept it or something similar in production.

[jayfish]

shame you feel that way, I am glad I got to see your photo, stunning cars and good picture.

[Robbo999]

Its very easy to make an X1/9 look pretty - once the American bumper crap is removed you have the original 70s Bertone lines. With some effort you can make them very fast. A mate of mine has an Alfa V6 engined one pushing 260 bhp which proves how strong the chasis is and my god does it handle well! (www.p1x-2000.co.uk) Just keep the waxoil can handy.

If you want super fast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ0L4MiCnWY

Over 600bhp in an X1/9!!!

Edited by Robbo999 on Friday 16th January 18:52

Edited by Robbo999 on Friday 16th January 19:03

[shithotfast]

So who was "bert" and why was this his first car? It was written on the side of every one of these cars..........

[stephen300o]

pixelpimp said:

stephen300o said:

mechsympathy said:

stephen300o said:

griffter said:

The 1300's are very pretty. I'm afraid the 1500s with their awful bumpers and higher engine cover are ruined. Abarth wide body versions and the incredible Dallara looked fanstastic.

Dallara,

Abarth,

Home brew racer,

I'll stick with a plain 1500 I think

I'm with Griffter. That Abarth is the mutts doodas, and the Dallara is gorgeous.

Might like this then,


So let me get this right stephen300o.
You download one of my copyrighted images from my account on flickr.
Upload it to photobucket and post it here without any permission or credit to me or my employers whatsoever?
Cheers mate got any fake dvds to sell too?
Yet another pistonheads thief. Oh it's ok though isn't it, this is the internet.

Oops sorry Haven't sold it. Nice pic anyway.

[evosticks]

Didn't they have a rev counter with a needle that moved anti-clockwise? Or am I imagining it?

[pixelpimp]

jayfish said:

shame you feel that way, I am glad I got to see your photo, stunning cars and good picture.

Thanks Jayfish. I appreciate the comment but it doesn't take two seconds to say where a picture came from, or even a proper link.

The Blue X/19 (neither are real Dallaras) is a superbly built ex-Italian hillclimb car which runs a 300 bhp Alfa Romeo touring car engine. The red car is a stunning 170bhp 1.6 SOHC Trivellato engined ex-Italian Slalom car.
Both are beautifully prepared examples and sound fantastic.

[stephen300o]

Hmm, you must hate yahoo then, almost 100% Flickr links, isn't there a way to stop people like me, alot I can't get hold of, a spaceball thing comes up instead. Again sorry to step on your toes.(if this is real sin, Blibs definitely going to hell).

[BlueCello]

TomJS said:

stephen300o said:

Fantastic car, second best car I've owned, despite the trouble.
Early ones are best,

That looks sensational!

Agree totally. I love these things, my dad almost bought on e back in the mid-90's when I was small, it was the neighbours. Black, was fantastic to a kid like me who loved cars. Unfortunately, dad spun it on the test drive so never bought it!! The best thing was however that another neighbour had a black TR7 and I did confuse them when I was 3 sometimes

I really don't think I'd be able to fit in one now either. 6ft 2 is too big for something that small really!

[Vron]

I had 3, all 1500's. They were great fun (when they weren't broken down).

[renmure]

I have had 3 of these.
A lime green early version, a red Gran Finale and a silver over black VS.
Great fun.
Occasionally.

[carjac]

Had one of these during the summer of 81 in mettalic burgundy with nearly all the laquer off. Great little drive when it was running. Always seemed to be overheating at every opportunitie. Great bird puller though, back in the day when all the birds were on the pill, without aids, and a lot lot slimmer than the knackers of today.