Our Barchetta owned from new exactly 17 years ago. Much loved and cherished car, used daily by my wife when she worked as a district nurse. Had a light refurb when she retired 6 years ago and now used only in summer. Still brings a smile every time she drives it and no intention at all of selling!

Iggy64 said:

Our Barchetta owned from new exactly 17 years ago.

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I can't beat that! I have had mine for 10 years now and drive it daily. It was off the road for a while and came close to selling it because we had 3 cars. 1 had to go and thankfully it wasn't the B.

I don't have the time and money to give it the attention that I used to but its the best car i've owned. Its been incredibly reliable and a pleasure to drive.

I've had mine for 11.5 years now. It was bought to mark my 50th (my "mid-life crisis car", if you like). Definitely the best £3k I've ever spent. It's only ever been used as a summer car (invariably with the top down), is never driven in the wet, and has done fewer than 20k miles since I bought it. It was off the road all last summer while I ineffectually tackled various faults, but my No.1 New Years Resolution in 3 weeks' time will be to get it back on the road in time for the spring. It brings a big, stupid grin to my face every time I drive it, and I love looking at it (Let's face it, the B is achingly beautiful from all angles - the 124 Spider is a Quasimodo in comparison). I can't see myself ever parting with it. In fact, I'm thinking buying another for my youngest daughter (who, needless to say, is also smitten). Oh, and they are rising in value, so even when wearing my Mr Sensible trousers, keeping hold of my Little B makes sense.

Drove mine ,top down in zero temperature conditions ,down to Goodwood on

Sunday for the Pistonheads meet there.

I'm usually the only B at PH meets ,sometimes the only Fiat ,apart from modern 500s and Abarths and occasional coupes.

Might not drive it again this year ,I miss it already.....

I'm about 40 miles short of doing 6000 this year ,my lowest total so far.

Once again I go out in freezing conditions top down ,this morning to a single venue rally at Goodwood circuit.

since I last posted I've also picked up a scuff on passenger side rear bumper corner that I have no idea where it came from ,so must have been scraped
by another car whilst parked, that didn't stop and own up to what they'd done.

I will own up to the scrape on the opposite corner ,I did that when not paying enough attention ,driving into my garage .I stuck some stickers over that to cover it up.....:devil:

Last night got back from road trip #1 of 2018 ,1168 miles Surrey to Dover to

Calais to Stuttgart to Essen to Calais etc all in around 53 hours.

First time attending Retro Classics show in Stuttgart and 4th time at

Techno Classica ,Essen ,both extremely good and big classic car shows.

Car was impeccably reliable as usual and had to thrash it a little in order to not

miss my booked ferry home as the traffic in Gent .Belgium was awful and lost

loads of time queuing there....

Woo-hoo, 6th anniversary of B ownership today. I'm the third owner from new. Bought her with 24k miles, now has just over 31k. She gets put into mothballs every winter. Went in a bit earlier than usual this time around as the original steel exhaust fell off in October! I ordered a stainless steel sport replacement from Germany last month, and had it fitted on Tuesday. Sounds great now, just need a sunny day!
Other than the exhaust, I've not had to do anything since I got her apart from the annual service, a new set of tyres and the timing belt (twice, ouch).

Here's a link to the Pistonheads thread with all my pics from the Germany

road trip mentioned above.

Don't bother to look if you don't like classic cars ,there's a LOT of pics.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=&t=1732918

enjoy....

finally after driving a full season with a sloppy shift linkage I finally got it repaired but it wasn't easy. I will never understand why Fiat put a pivot point for the shift linkage on the steering rack. Bloody impossible to get at. Lets hope it lasts.:

Are some of you waiting for May 1st to dust off the car and get out there ?

I had a drive yesterday, Surrey to Dorset ,for a family funeral unfortunately

and took my sister down with me.

I wasn't sure whether she wanted to go 2+hours top down but she was all for it

as she brought a headscarf.

It was such a nice day it would've been a shame to drive top up ,shame about the circumstances and terrible traffic on the A31.

Hi ,it's the bloke who goes on road trips again.

Got back this morning from a quick 2 day trip to France ,primarily to see

the Tour Auto ,a retro road race through rural France ,also went to the

Cite de i'Automobile again in Mulhouse and a museum in Beaune with a

decent selection of Abarths ,about 35 cars.

There will be pics ,just like the last trip.

Memorable moments from the trip......being chased by a Ferrari BB for a couple

of miles to the Dijon Prenois circuit and then later that day, a Lancia 037

Stradale behind me at traffic lights....jumped out and grabbed a pic of that.

Tour Auto lasts all week but I could only spare Tuesday as it's my father's funeral today.

BTW 1263 miles in 2 days 8.5 hours.

So sorry for your loss.

Great weather brought a great day at Auto Italia at Brooklands today.

I counted 11 Barchettas there.

3 silver ,3 metallic blue ,1 metallic green ,1 solid green ,1 yellow ,1 red and

a dark blue.

Mine was the only car with rusty rear wheel arches......

It's me again ,been on a road trip ,#3 for the year.

Went to Belgium for the world RX weekend ,3rd year running for that

and then made my way down to Italy via some other stuff to watch the

2018 Mille Miglia ,the best old car event in the world....possibly.

I will do a thread in the other place and link to it ,I completely failed to get

going with one on road trip #2 from France ,apologies for that.

3164 miles in 2 weeks ,21 yo FIAT ,not a single problem with the car .

Spotted 3 other B's in Italy whilst there too ,2 red and a silver.....:slayer:

How many miles has your B done?

You've done more miles in yours in 2 weeks than I've done in mine in 3 years!

Noideadave said:

How many miles has your B done?

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I've put about 50,000 miles into the total of about 130,000 miles.

It's only showing 114.000 of those due to 2 speedo changes

Link to the thread on Pistonheads.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=65&t=1745263&i=999999

I managed to complete it in record time ,the thread for road trip #1 took days

n days to finish but I posted less pics this time.

Please enjoy......