RE: SOTW: Fiat X1/9
Discussion
I owned an X1/9 for a day...
Was 18 years old, swapped my old W-reg Mitsubishi Galant (don't ask...) for the Fiat. Drove it like I stole it and have never had so much fun in a car, but my Mum made me get rid of it when it rolled into the garage door because the handbrake didn't work, then when I moved it back, it dumped oil on the newly concreted drive
Amazing little cars, would love to own one, but definitely only when I get a garage (not on a hill!!!)
Was 18 years old, swapped my old W-reg Mitsubishi Galant (don't ask...) for the Fiat. Drove it like I stole it and have never had so much fun in a car, but my Mum made me get rid of it when it rolled into the garage door because the handbrake didn't work, then when I moved it back, it dumped oil on the newly concreted drive
Amazing little cars, would love to own one, but definitely only when I get a garage (not on a hill!!!)
A mate of mine (in the 80's) had a 'V.S.' (posh special edition) version of these, I remember that the clocks in it used to rotate in oposite directions (Speedo & rev-counter) his objective on almost every trip was to get the needles to point to each other
I cant quite remember what that equated to, but around 115mph rings a bell.... he never quite managed to achieve his goal. He wasn't a great driver, in fact he went through a hedge or hit something immovable in almost every car he owned & the Fiat did not suit his ability at all.... whenever it rained he spun it-many, many, many times, not sure if that's a handling trait or his ineptitude (likely 
)
I drove it a couple of times & loved it, it wasn't a fast car (1.5 version) but it sounded great-with the carb so close to your ears & was really fun to drive, although I seem to remember (at over 6ft) I was very cramped for headroom & knees under the wheel room too... was worth the slight discomfort though for how it made you feel, it had that rare 'this is a bit special' feel about it...
Sorry for the fairly irrelevant reminiscing, I shall remove my rose tinted spectacles now.
I cant quite remember what that equated to, but around 115mph rings a bell.... he never quite managed to achieve his goal. He wasn't a great driver, in fact he went through a hedge or hit something immovable in almost every car he owned & the Fiat did not suit his ability at all.... whenever it rained he spun it-many, many, many times, not sure if that's a handling trait or his ineptitude (likely ) I drove it a couple of times & loved it, it wasn't a fast car (1.5 version) but it sounded great-with the carb so close to your ears & was really fun to drive, although I seem to remember (at over 6ft) I was very cramped for headroom & knees under the wheel room too... was worth the slight discomfort though for how it made you feel, it had that rare 'this is a bit special' feel about it...
Sorry for the fairly irrelevant reminiscing, I shall remove my rose tinted spectacles now.
julian64 said:
firebird350 said:
Owned an '83 X1/9 (black, with those daft, cream-coloured PLASTIC seats!) as a daily driver and, strangely enough, it was totally reliable even down to the electrics incl. the pop-up headlights, although having manual windows might have helped the score card there! A finely-tuned drive with steering, clutch and gearchange all having similar weighting. You could either chuck it at corners or 'think' it round them, the choice was yours.
Granted the rust was always nibbling away at a few of the low-down edges but mechanically it was tough. Helped the synchro life if you double de-clutched the gearbox until it was warmed up but had a bulletproof (although, yes, underpowered) engine which revved hard and always sounded smooth and keen while the gear ratios themselves were nicely spaced and co-operated well.
As others have said though, the X1/9's real trick in making up for the power shortfall was its ability to 'carry' speed through bends which gave it surprising ground-covering ability - but in any straightline drag race, forget it!
Drove mine all over the UK spectating on the 1990 RAC Rally, even sleeping in it (and I'm 6ft 2!) and it was a great companion, withstanding everything the sodden British forests and November weather could throw at it. A great driver's car, much under-rated, and my subsequent switch from X1/9 to twin-cam Montecarlo somehow wasn't the quantum leap I was expecting. Does that say more about the X1/9 - or less about the Montecarlo?
I thought the montecarlo was a truly fearsome car. The one I had was the first car I'd ever been in that could accelerate strongly in top gear. Its a shame because both it and the X19 rusted to the MOT fail. But I thought both were blistering drivers cars. The Montecarlo however wasn't as good at handling and seemed to lock front wheels up before you even thought you'd touched the brake.Granted the rust was always nibbling away at a few of the low-down edges but mechanically it was tough. Helped the synchro life if you double de-clutched the gearbox until it was warmed up but had a bulletproof (although, yes, underpowered) engine which revved hard and always sounded smooth and keen while the gear ratios themselves were nicely spaced and co-operated well.
As others have said though, the X1/9's real trick in making up for the power shortfall was its ability to 'carry' speed through bends which gave it surprising ground-covering ability - but in any straightline drag race, forget it!
Drove mine all over the UK spectating on the 1990 RAC Rally, even sleeping in it (and I'm 6ft 2!) and it was a great companion, withstanding everything the sodden British forests and November weather could throw at it. A great driver's car, much under-rated, and my subsequent switch from X1/9 to twin-cam Montecarlo somehow wasn't the quantum leap I was expecting. Does that say more about the X1/9 - or less about the Montecarlo?
Chap near to us had one of these. If memory serves, (I was a nipper at the time), he dropped an Integrale unit in there, but then had to fabricate a special air intake that poked up over the roof - presumably for it to breathe properly.
It then slowly rotted on his drive.
Was probably one of those projects that looked great on paper.
It then slowly rotted on his drive.
Was probably one of those projects that looked great on paper.
The Montecarlo/Scorpion suffered from a longer wheelbase which was added to minimise handling problems from the much heavier twin cam engine and gearbox. As a dynamic package it was never in the same league as the X1/9 and strangely despite the larger size had much less storage capacity too. Both cars feel small though even if the X1/9 was essentially the same size as Mk3 Ford Escort and the Montecarlo that bit bigger again - so both comfortably in family car dimensions of that time. Ironically The X1/9 was supposed to get the twin cam engine when the car was designed but Lancia wanted the bigger engine and some exclusivity on it so the X1/9 was relegated to using the smaller SOHC engine.
Not so long ago I did a bit of brainstorming to see if I could find a "newer" platform to re-shell my X1/9 racecar onto and discovered that with the exception of the Stratos (well known for its ditch finding ability if you weren't concentrating) *all* production mid-engined cars used a sizeably longer wheelbase. The only one that came close was the Montecarlo but even that was too long.
The X1/9 gets its handling from the superb balance it was born with and partially from some pretty serious attention to detail in the assembly line (who would have thought on a 70s/80s italian car) despite some quite alarming variations in panel fit (no surprises there though). The engine may only deliver 85bhp (in the 1500) but by the standards of that era it was pretty good for a production engine - the cam profile was so aggressive that the average fast road cam that you could buy from the likes of kent and piper at the time was actually a downgrade. All you needed for some tuning fun was a bit of valve work, some new carbs and a better exhaust. There are plenty of home-grown examples out there getting 130bhp out of the same engine without much trouble. The best bit is it would just keep on revving, a good-un would rev happily to about 10k and thanks to the lack of electronics there was no rev limiter to stop you. The 1300 engine was even better on that party trick with most cars happily revving completely off the clock.
A few examples in europe (and one in Israel) are packing stupid horsepower (admittedly with an engine swap) - try looking up Doront5 on youtube. I believe an X1/9 even holds a land speed record - even if it was a bit specialised. In competition the X1/9 went rallying and embarrassed the Lancia Stratos resulting in Lancia getting the X1/9 rally project killed off. On the race track Dallara used the X1/9 as the basis of their first commercial venture resulting in a slippery little car that competed competently against the bigger Porsches of that time (amongst others).
The engine in mine could run up to 450bhp on overboost, coupled with a rather minimal total weight of 700kg makes for some pretty incredible acceleration. Just a shame the engine and gearbox were stolen last year and most likely just for scrap metal.
If the X1/9 has a real problem it is the electrics - when we stripped out the original wiring from my car when it was last reshelled there was a good 30kg of wiring and associated bits of tat that came out and that is without the heavy headlamp pod motors. The fusebox alone was about 5kg. The wires are plentiful and the connectors only marginally better than their 70s Lucas equivalents (which doesn't say much). The earthing points would happily rot away (somewhat faster than the rest of the bodywork) and water ingress into the main power cables meant the electrics could struggle to light up the dashboard when it got bad. Worse still on the early cars it appears the Italian designers of the wiring spaghetti didn't believe in relays so it wasn't too uncommon for the steering column stalk switches to basically melt and stop working. The later (Bertone badged) cars are much, much better but still need a bit of surgery every ten years or so to replace the main power distribution cable.
As for body rot? It was designed in the 70s before anyone every heard of anti-perforation guarantees and everything from that era rusted quickly (if it was made of metal) - it certainly didn't rot like its cousin the beta coupe which frequently had rotted away before it was even delivered (and I am really not joking on that one) thanks to a somewhat dodgy deal with Russia to swap worn out production lines for lots of steel. Just a shame the steel was low grade and had been left stacked at docks for years already exposed to plenty of salt - even still I think Fiat might have got the better of that particular exchange...
Not so long ago I did a bit of brainstorming to see if I could find a "newer" platform to re-shell my X1/9 racecar onto and discovered that with the exception of the Stratos (well known for its ditch finding ability if you weren't concentrating) *all* production mid-engined cars used a sizeably longer wheelbase. The only one that came close was the Montecarlo but even that was too long.
The X1/9 gets its handling from the superb balance it was born with and partially from some pretty serious attention to detail in the assembly line (who would have thought on a 70s/80s italian car) despite some quite alarming variations in panel fit (no surprises there though). The engine may only deliver 85bhp (in the 1500) but by the standards of that era it was pretty good for a production engine - the cam profile was so aggressive that the average fast road cam that you could buy from the likes of kent and piper at the time was actually a downgrade. All you needed for some tuning fun was a bit of valve work, some new carbs and a better exhaust. There are plenty of home-grown examples out there getting 130bhp out of the same engine without much trouble. The best bit is it would just keep on revving, a good-un would rev happily to about 10k and thanks to the lack of electronics there was no rev limiter to stop you. The 1300 engine was even better on that party trick with most cars happily revving completely off the clock.
A few examples in europe (and one in Israel) are packing stupid horsepower (admittedly with an engine swap) - try looking up Doront5 on youtube. I believe an X1/9 even holds a land speed record - even if it was a bit specialised. In competition the X1/9 went rallying and embarrassed the Lancia Stratos resulting in Lancia getting the X1/9 rally project killed off. On the race track Dallara used the X1/9 as the basis of their first commercial venture resulting in a slippery little car that competed competently against the bigger Porsches of that time (amongst others).
The engine in mine could run up to 450bhp on overboost, coupled with a rather minimal total weight of 700kg makes for some pretty incredible acceleration. Just a shame the engine and gearbox were stolen last year and most likely just for scrap metal.
If the X1/9 has a real problem it is the electrics - when we stripped out the original wiring from my car when it was last reshelled there was a good 30kg of wiring and associated bits of tat that came out and that is without the heavy headlamp pod motors. The fusebox alone was about 5kg. The wires are plentiful and the connectors only marginally better than their 70s Lucas equivalents (which doesn't say much). The earthing points would happily rot away (somewhat faster than the rest of the bodywork) and water ingress into the main power cables meant the electrics could struggle to light up the dashboard when it got bad. Worse still on the early cars it appears the Italian designers of the wiring spaghetti didn't believe in relays so it wasn't too uncommon for the steering column stalk switches to basically melt and stop working. The later (Bertone badged) cars are much, much better but still need a bit of surgery every ten years or so to replace the main power distribution cable.
As for body rot? It was designed in the 70s before anyone every heard of anti-perforation guarantees and everything from that era rusted quickly (if it was made of metal) - it certainly didn't rot like its cousin the beta coupe which frequently had rotted away before it was even delivered (and I am really not joking on that one) thanks to a somewhat dodgy deal with Russia to swap worn out production lines for lots of steel. Just a shame the steel was low grade and had been left stacked at docks for years already exposed to plenty of salt - even still I think Fiat might have got the better of that particular exchange...
Edited by jimbro1000 on Friday 18th May 16:55
Red than Dead said:
When I was in my teens, mid 70's....I was in love with a black X1/9, targa top, cream leather.....really smart.....and also the teacher who drove it.....a gorgeous blonde.....the whole experience had a certain "Flake" ad quality.....
May have been the 1300 Lido limited edition. Name after an Italian nightclub IIRC.
I had a Fiat X1/9 in the late 80's. Was probably the best handling car I've owned but was also a bit of a money pit. The headlights failed to go up at one stage (as can be seen of this picture with me and it).That cost a fortune to fix and also Fiat's bodywork was not the best at the time and I had the car fully resprayed. The engine and gearbox were very good but it was bit tricky to start fir thing, you had to get the choke setting just right but once started was great for the rest of the day. I bought it from an RAF vehicle fitter and the alternator came from a Landrover. Once on a journey down the M6, the battery exploded! I'm glad I was was a member of the RAC with that car. Lots of niggles with it and I sold it at a loss. I've often thought about getting another but circumstances nowadays preclude that. Top shedding again though PH.
Edited by CooperD on Friday 18th May 17:04
No problems, I have a head full of useless trivia. From Wikipedia:
'Unlike Fiat's marketing nomenclature at the time which used a numerical system (e.g., 127, 128, 124, 131) denoting relative position in the model range, the X1/9 retained its prototype code as its marketing name. Fiat's prototype coding used X0 for engines, X1 for passenger vehicles and X2 for commercial vehicles. The X1/9 was thus the ninth passenger car developed using the nomenclature.'
I don't know what the Lancia Stratos prototype code was.
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