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VFRMike said:

The original black plate under the white one is coming with the car and is original to the car.

I am very much into originality, so odds are they may come off. In fact, (and should I actually be admitting this?) I will even clean up an old worm washer, let alone a much bigger part, and re-use it instead of putting another new one on. I guess it's the sentimental side of me.

I still think it was quite risky or me to purchase a car sight-unseen from half way across the world. And then ship it (in it's own 20' shipping container) given I have never shipped or done anything close to this in my life. There was simply something very special about this car.

I even ensured the new home had a garage big enough (4-car + motorcycle parking) to hold this special car. I told my realtor that if it did not have enough room for the addition of this FIAT then I was not interested in the home as this car will be garaged.
VFRMike.

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It was the black plate that interested me as it looked Italian and again might have an interesting story to tell. Italian plates of that era often had a two letter code that indicated the area of registration, TO for Turin, VE for Venice,
BO for Bologna, MI for Milan and so on. The exception being Rome which has the word Roma, which is a bone of contention for many Italians outside the city.

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Italy[/ame]

Originality is very important. There's a train of thought that the Ferraris and Maseratis that compete at the Villa d' Este at Lake Como or the Dusenbergs at Pebble Beach are just too perfect. An old car that has a level of finish that would never have existed when it was made is a fraud as far as I'm concerned. But, there is an argument that the sort of contemporary modifications that would have been found, for instance slot mags on a '71 Mustang, are ok when retrofitted, but a 10 stack CD system isn't, at least not in my eyes.

It was risky to buy sight unseen from so far away, but, it's not a Ferrari 365 GTB Daytona that turns out to be a Kit Car with a Ford V6 in it. Nonetheless, a few grand to buy, plus shipping isn't to be sniffed at for mere mortals like most of the members on here.

4-car garage???? Round where I live that's called a multi-storey car park!!

Enjoy the 128, it's a cracker, and don't forget, keep us up to date please.

Well, the thirty-something day voyage from Athens, Greece is over and the car is now home in my garage in California. It's really small on the outside but you'd never know sitting inside it- amazing! It runs, steers, and brakes like new- although It's only got 55K miles. Here are some pictures I took just after we took it out of the shipping container. It started immediately- even after being out at sea all that time!

VFRMike said:

Well, the thirty-something day voyage from Athens, Greece is over and the car is now home in my garage in California. It's really small on the outside but you'd never know sitting inside it- amazing! It runs, steers, and brakes like new- although It's only got 55K miles. Here are some pictures I took just after we took it out of the shipping container. It started immediately- even after being out at sea all that time!

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congrats..!!

and bon chance with the DMV - Charlie

It is officially registered!! Wow, what a process this has been and I am glad it is over to say the least. I am not certain I'd ever import another vehicle again. What a fun car though. This car gets WAY more attention than I had ever imagined.

Hi all. I have just imported a Fiat Multipla 600 from Italy into the UK. I believe the year of manufacture is 1963 but with no Italian registration available, I dont know for sure. I think I will need this information register properly in the UK. Can anyone kindly assist me in advising how I can go about checking the serial number on the plate-100D.108-116937-against year of manufacture/first registration?
Many thanks in anticipation. John

Chasnpip2 said:

Hi all. I have just imported a Fiat Multipla 600 from Italy into the UK. I believe the year of manufacture is 1963 but with no Italian registration available, I dont know for sure. I think I will need this information register properly in the UK. Can anyone kindly assist me in advising how I can go about checking the serial number on the plate-100D.108-116937-against year of manufacture/first registration?
Many thanks in anticipation. John

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Hi.

Being of such a close build to the classic 500.. I would SEARCH that section .

My recollection of country and year being within the VIN code still stands

There was a multi resto mentioned this week..

Charlie

OK I'll have to give a plug for the Fiat Motor Club GB.

"The club is able to liase with Fiat to obtain build dates for imported cars and those with registration issues".

For club members with over 1 years membership they are allowed to 1 free dating letter. For new members it costs £50. For non members it costs £100.

The dating letter will be offical and certainly acceptable to the DVLA.

Please NOTE!. Because long term club members are only allowed 1 free dating I suspect that getting the information out of Fiat is not plain sailing and involves a load of manual records research into the manufacturing/other paper and microfiche archives.

I once tried to get information (not manufacturing date) out of Fiat Italy (Historico) (in an official capacity) and was advised I had more information than they did

For later models then ePER will be of use. For models pre ePER the "ComPACT After Sale Compact Technology" discs are required (pre 2002). I have some of them back to 05-2000 Ed.31 but can not recall what past models are on these and also even if they will install/run on Win7+ systems.

OK I've tried to fire up the old Fiat ComPACT system and despite my best efforts this is only ever going to work on a Windows Vista (at latest system). I think I have some archived PC hardware with Vista installed but to be quite honest I see no value or return from going down this route as I know our Strada Abarth was not on that system but I do have the microfiche info. All our Fiats post 130TC are covered by ePER.

This legacy information serving ability is only going to get worse in the future.

This industry is rapidly becoming a buy today, scrap tomorrow regime.

All the old 20's, 30s, 40s, up until around 1995 vehicles were traditional pure mechanical and simple carburettor and electrical points operated vehicles. These days we are in a world far apart from "old times".

An extreme example will be the Fiat MultiAir engines. These rely on dedicated ECU's with complex controlling software to even get the engine started let alone dynamically run.

It will be interesting to see over time how the prevalence of post 2000/2005+ classics compare to prior vintages. Would also add that I'm suspecting that true old school vintage owners are slowly dying out and that more modern replacements are just not there in numbers enough across the makes/brands to sustain all but a very very slim/thin/limited minority of vehicles.

What a real shame and I don't see manufacturers these days bend over backward to maintain their "public" heritage. They only do just enough to keep their "company" heritage collections up and running. The rest of us can go and *iss off or be extremely rich!!!!!

All very sad IMHO.