So, I am visiting my dad in Italy and whilst here I thought it might be a great idea for me to buy an old Fiat 500 and drive it back via the south of France to the UK. 900 plus miles at 45mph...gulp!
Meet Sofia. Named after the seller's daughter. Richard (a mate) has a 500 and knows them well. He told me a few things to look out for. Mainly don't be blinded by a shiny one and absolutely avoid one that looks like it was crashed.
Sofia looks pretty shiny and I think there's some evidence of a crash repair up front on the panel behind the battery. So it's good job I spoke to an expert before I bought the car. Also it's Ivory, so basically beige. But to me it looks good. So I keep telling myself. It's been repainted in the orginal dcolour at some point and the job looks reasonable if not perfect. Can't find much evidence of filler so that is reassuring.
The gearbox is a bit rough, worse than the others I tried. Double declutch with a blip of throttle is the only way to stop crunching into second and third and even then it still clunks quite unhappily. Good project for my mate Richard when I get back.
More info will of course follow in due course. Couple of pics for now attached.
Any advice on pre journey checks would be appreciated. I have some basic tools here and have bought spare points and plugs. Also want to do an oil change which im sure will be easy (simple car and I've done lots on other cars) but is there anyhting online that shows the procedure? are there tricks to be aware of? or just warm it up, pull sump plug and then refill? Is the oil level checked warm or cold? I looked at the guides available here but could find nothing on an actual engine oil change...
Meet Sofia. Named after the seller's daughter. Richard (a mate) has a 500 and knows them well. He told me a few things to look out for. Mainly don't be blinded by a shiny one and absolutely avoid one that looks like it was crashed.
Sofia looks pretty shiny and I think there's some evidence of a crash repair up front on the panel behind the battery. So it's good job I spoke to an expert before I bought the car. Also it's Ivory, so basically beige. But to me it looks good. So I keep telling myself. It's been repainted in the orginal dcolour at some point and the job looks reasonable if not perfect. Can't find much evidence of filler so that is reassuring.
The gearbox is a bit rough, worse than the others I tried. Double declutch with a blip of throttle is the only way to stop crunching into second and third and even then it still clunks quite unhappily. Good project for my mate Richard when I get back.
More info will of course follow in due course. Couple of pics for now attached.
Any advice on pre journey checks would be appreciated. I have some basic tools here and have bought spare points and plugs. Also want to do an oil change which im sure will be easy (simple car and I've done lots on other cars) but is there anyhting online that shows the procedure? are there tricks to be aware of? or just warm it up, pull sump plug and then refill? Is the oil level checked warm or cold? I looked at the guides available here but could find nothing on an actual engine oil change...
It's worth having a close examination of Its condition when you get back and have recovered. It always seems a shame to modify apparently original and functional 500s like yours.
