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Punto (Mk1) My exploit yellow 75 elx

Introduction

Hi.
My name is Simon and I haven't been on here in ages.
I'm a fiat nut who has owned fiats all my life as have my family. I work in a fiat dealership in dundee and have treated myself to a new car, as it's the first time in my life I have been without a fiat.

I bought the following car off ebay for 4 reasons

1. I had one as my first car
2. I just bought a house and have somewhere to keep it
3. My mum had a brand new exploit yellow 55 sx back in '95
4. Have plenty fiat techs to fix it when it breaks

So, I'm in dundee, the car was in Yorkshire, so my dad and I left 5:30am Saturday morning in his 500L to pick it up. I was worried about bringing a near 20 year old fiat 260 mile up the road, but it didn't miss a beat. It drives like a new car.

History- we'll it was sold new to a mrs crappe, at carnell fiat, she had the car garaged from new, done 70,000 miles in it. It had its original dealer plates on it which I changed, as they were tatty. Full years mot with no advisories, and a full service history. She specced it up with a drivers airbag!

The car come with a few parking dings, original scuffed wheel trims, and a couple of light scratches, otherwise it's mint.
Luckily working in a fiat dealer, I can get parts, a workshop with a 40 years served fiat technician, a dent man and body shop.

Took the car into work today to get all the dents removed, was up on the ramps for a health check- solid underneath, just needs new discs and pads and a rocker cover gasket. Underneath is solid, clean and all present and correct. It also needs a new cam belt cover as mine is burst. Then that's it mint.
Turns out the rear tyres are the factory originals, made 3rd week of 1995, so it will be getting a full set of brand new Goodyear duragrips I have in my garage.
Surprisingly every single thing works on the car, even the remote locking and being an elx it has an electric sunroof!!!

It's quite funny because all the fiat techs were all over it today, donating parts. One of them had an exploit yellow touch up pen that's been in his toolbox for 15 years, got handbrake cables and a rocker cover gasket, with more bits offered. They also went on e-sigi and printed out the complete history of my car, showing recalls for brake pipes, airbag ecu etc which is nice to keep.

Work so far done-

New genuine wheel trims
New genuine punto mats
Original fiat tape deck
Genuine fiat lineaccessorie front and rear mudflaps
General tidy up
Clay, wet sand, machine polish bodywork
New numberplates
Dents removed
Brand new badges
Full valet

I love this car, I can't believe how mint it is. Taking bad with no power steering though.
I put it in the showroom and took some piccies.
Anyway the pictures.......

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And my main/ daily car

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i'd bet any money that cover is just whacked on with a ratchet about as tight as they thought was right... Don't get me wrong, i'm not torque wrench nazi, i hardly ever break out my own torque wrench but a fire engine rocker cover is one of them instances as they are so prone to leaking, and the torque setting of 8Nm is so not tight at all, i reckon i could possibly do 8Nm with my hands lol.
Bear in mind though that most diy'ers i know have a 1/2" drive torque wrench and that will prob not even go down to 8Nm - the good side of that though is a 3/8" or 1/4" ones seem to cost much less (y)

And on the keep it sell it front, only you can decide that really - just don't run into anything, you will not ever find one as clean ever again we all know that. If i was you and not feeling it right now I think I would just park it up in the garage and leave it for a while, thing is practically museum piece and only reason i would ever sell would be to make way for another car.
 
its a funny one being a 5 door, i doubt it will ever be hugely desirable because of that. I know of a few immaculate 5 door unos for sale but noone seems interested - whereas if they were as nice as they are and 3 door people would be throwing money at them for them i'm sure. But it kinda makes it a rarer and cooler car at the same time. catch 22 really - but it is not costing you anything to hold onto it and its never gonna go down in value so makes sense to just keep hold of it if you have the space :shrug:
 
they are pretty bullet proof when looked after, i am more than confident the engine will outlast the shell if maintained lol. Top end of the engines are getting pretty hard to source but the bottom end of any 1.2 8v engine could be used if you had a problem there, even from the newer cars, just have to swap the ancillaries over and engine mounts etc..

That being said, only 2 weeks ago i bought and collected a full P75 engine will all ancillaries, inlet, exhaust, TB, ecu, engine loom, etc etc, the whole shebang for £150
 
Well I'll know where to come looking for one then.
To be fair, this thing has stacks of service history and receipts etc so I know the cars been well looked after.

Plus the guys in my work know their way around it.
It feels really fragile though, I never boot it, ever
 
It was a fiat/ Alfa specialist that did it.
Might whip it off and have a go myself.

In a bid to make myself like the car again I have been busy cleaning as it always makes me feel better having a shiny car.
Aqquired a supaguard pad from work and as we are in a heatwave, set about the car.

Nice shine ❤️



Now how can you bring yourself to part with a car that's so damn good looking, lol! ;)
 
Well I'll know where to come looking for one then.
To be fair, this thing has stacks of service history and receipts etc so I know the cars been well looked after.

Plus the guys in my work know their way around it.
It feels really fragile though, I never boot it, ever

Good luck. It will be in my panda soon...

and I would say you are being paranoid about it, fire engines love a good thrash. They can take a proper beating. I have know p75 engines to take triple factory power without a single internal upgrade other than a decomp plate or 16v pistons to lower compression for boost.
 
Today I used the punto for a 100 mile round trip to visit friends in Fife.
I noticed that when the car was parked on their hilly drive, that it would look awesome lowered a bit, by the way it was sitting.
Don't really wanna mess about with it but it looks great.
Thoughts?

 
hi Simon , if it was mine I would leave it , mine has lowered springs and although it looks good it's a pain to drive , you're forever dodging grates and pot holes and spoils the ride , I have a full set of standard springs & shocks to go back on .
 
The wife made a good point that if I lowered it I would have to take the mudflaps off and I don't want to do that.
Just thought it looked good sitting lower.

On a side note, after 100 mile drive today, even most of it being motorway, I'm exhausted lol.
The baby fell asleep in the back, wife fell asleep in the front and I felt like it too.
Shows how far modern cars have come on- was glad to get back into the kuga earlier
 
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