Found a episode of restoring a 500 on youtube

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Quite cheap engine+gearbox. Not so impressed about the restoration

Well, each to their own, but if you ask me that was a nice car butchered with a cheap paint job that makes it look like a pizza box - and which will probably last about as long when left out in the UK weather. Sigh...

Does anyone know what has happened to the guy they bought the engine off? He traded as Ricambi Fiat 500 I think and had a huge stock of parts listed on his Flickr page, which is still operating, but his eBay shop is not. He was trading up until about 6 months ago as I recall seeing some of his stuff on eBay. I tried emailing using an address I found on a UK forum but got no reply. I really hope he is still in business somewhere because he appeared to be providing some good parts.

The company name changed to "Ricambi Fiat 500 Spares" and the person you want is
[email protected] +44 7946 475756
+44 208 640 9410

RogerNZ said:

Well, each to their own, but if you ask me that was a nice car butchered with a cheap paint job that makes it look like a pizza box - and which will probably last about as long when left out in the UK weather. Sigh...

Click to expand...

Uh huh - they were very lucky to find a rust free car with good brakes, a spotless interior, blah blah ... must have been in a dry barn since 1972.

If you are going to restore any old car you've really got to take it back to metal so you can see what you've got. Mine was bead blasted back to bare metal and had every bit of rust removed and replaced with high quality panels - I know it's a good body. It was then primed, rubbed, baked, painted, rubbed, painted some more, baked some more etc. etc. to give it a lovely depth.

There is a lot more in this quick and dirty restoration that you could comment on, but I haven't the time at the moment.

It probably will run for quite a while just because they are tough little beasts.

Of yeah - the steering wheel is on the wrong side too

Nuff said,

Chris