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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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Just been on that how many left site and according to
Them, there are only 100 75 elx's left on the roads.

Assuming most of them have donated engines to cinquecento's.

Mental to think considering how many there were 10/15 years ago
 
Just been on that how many left site and according to
Them, there are only 100 75 elx's left on the roads.

Assuming most of them have donated engines to cinquecento's.

Mental to think considering how many there were 10/15 years ago

Definitely not. No more than a handful will have. The 75 swap was never really a popular swap, most went for p60 purely because it was (almost) plug and play.

Yeah the cams were sought after but they were sourced mainly after cars had already been scrapped/broken and the 866 cams also appeared in a few later p60's anyway, so the sources for them weren't even just p75's.

Reckon they just rotted their floorpans like other mk1 puntos tbh and there were just less of them about than p60's.

In fact, if you look at other mk1 punto models, the numbers show that the 75's have died off fractionally slower than most mk1's.... it's pretty consistent over the board though.
 
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Just been on that how many left site and according to
Them, there are only 100 75 elx's left on the roads.

Assuming most of them have donated engines to cinquecento's.

Mental to think considering how many there were 10/15 years ago

Out of interest to see the performance figures, I started looking for a Punto 75 on autotrader, and ended up finding my parents' old mk2 ELX, which is the car responsible for my current love of Fiats!! I couldn't believe my eyes!!!
 
Definitely not. No more than a handful will have. The 75 swap was never really a popular swap, most went for p60 purely because it was (almost) plug and play.

Yeah the cams were sought after but they were sourced mainly after cars had already been scrapped/broken and the 866 cams also appeared in a few later p60's anyway, so the sources for them weren't even just p75's.

Reckon they just rotted their floorpans like other mk1 puntos tbh and there were just less of them about than p60's.

In fact, if you look at other mk1 punto models, the numbers show that the 75's have died off fractionally slower than most mk1's.... it's pretty consistent over the board though.

Could agree more with that post, mk1 punto's really don't seem to last well from a rot point of view, shame really as generally speaking fiat seemed to have sorted that issue out by the time these were new cars.. P75 was never a common car either, people tended to lean towards either a a really cheap 55/60 or the other end of the chain, a sporting or GT.
 
You've done an amazing job of an already great car there, mate! I love it. Loved seeing Exploit Yellow Punto's about when I had my Midnight Blue one back in 2003-2005. Really great having such supportive work colleagues who clearly love their Fiats too. When I worked at a Fiat place I got the impression there was only a couple of us who really loved the cars, to everyone else it was just a way of getting some wages :(

I kept eyeing up ELXs when I had mine too, but most of the ones I saw were the (1.6) 90 ELXs, and the interiors were worn as hell - for some reason the velour on ELXs seemed to fade terribly compared to the very hard wearing original SX cloth (the mild facelift MK1 SX cloth seamed to fray badly though).

My Mk1 (1996 75 SX 5dr) had its original number plates, tax disc holder, Punto mats & even the factory quality check certificate under the driver side sunvisor, which I thought was an achievement in 2003 but yours is something else :D Sadly mine was scrapped in 2011/2012 by either the people who bought it from me or the one after that - it stayed local so I used to see it & it was immaculate outside up to the time it got scrapped, but I'm guessing it needed welding, a clutch, or the head gasket in the end - it never needed any of that (or much else) while I had it & was truly reliable, starting off my weird love of Fiats!

Just something I'm curious of, are Mk1s really that bad for rust? All the ones I've seen appeared (at least on the surface) to last better than the Mk2s. My Mk2 certainly had thinner paint than the Mk1. Was it like a lot of Fiats/Alfas, where the rust affected bits you couldn't see?

Anyway ace job mate, keep up the good work! :)
 
My drivers seat is the last thing I really need to do to the car, as the piping has worn through on the base. Other than that the seats are in really good nick.

I know what you mean about the sx seats, my 98 85sx had the blue interior and the seats were wrecked on the base. It made the car look really tatty
 
Ok,
I'm in two minds about these..........



Brand new old stock bravo 15" speedilne abarth alloys, I have had stashed away for a while.
I've bought brand new black fiat centre caps instead of the abarth ones as they were missing.

However, as the car is so original, I don't want to ruin it with wheels.
Obviously I don't want to buy tyres if I don't like them on the car.

What's everyone's thoughts?
If I don't put them on the car I may sell them
 
Ok,
I'm in two minds about these..........



Brand new old stock bravo 15" speedilne abarth alloys, I have had stashed away for a while.
I've bought brand new black fiat centre caps instead of the abarth ones as they were missing.

However, as the car is so original, I don't want to ruin it with wheels.
Obviously I don't want to buy tyres if I don't like them on the car.

What's everyone's thoughts?
If I don't put them on the car I may sell them

If you were going to put alloys on, I'd try to find a set from a late model 60 SX.
 
No chance, they're terrible.

Think I'm gonna keep the steelies and elx trims as its how the car left the factory, it's just I keep getting itchy feet wanting to change the wheels, and these are rare wheels and brand new, will never find another set
 
No chance, they're terrible.

Think I'm gonna keep the steelies and elx trims as its how the car left the factory, it's just I keep getting itchy feet wanting to change the wheels, and these are rare wheels and brand new, will never find another set

Defo try and resist the urge, or if you do decide to change the wheels, use 1s that were fitted to mk1 Puntos.
 
15" rims on a Mk1 Punto is a no-no... they belong on a correct car like a Bravo or Brava or maybe a Tipo...

14" maximum I reckon, even 13" (Cinquecento sporting?) would look good, but the standrad look is fine even though the trims you have are pretty ugly but definitely what Fiat intended.

There are also some nice Fiat Tipo accessory 14" alloys on ebay right now...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/fiat-clas...448?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item541c32fce0
 
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I don't think I'm going to change to alloys. Maybe if I had something I wanted to modify a bit but I really don't want to change the car from factory.

I had also been thinking of punto gt wheels as you could spec them as a option on the elx new.

I know it's only wheels and they can be changed but I have ocd, and think I would prefer the car to be as it left the showroom.

So. If anyone wants a set of bravo abarth wheels, let me know
 
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