Love this thread.
Where's Jock?
Here I am!
I tend to go for "threads you've posted to" and "New Posts" Then the Pandas, 500s and Grande Punto/Punto 2012. It's pretty random after that so I often miss things until I'm surfing through maybe once a month or so.
The first "FIAT" I fell in love with was not actually a FIAT. That sounds a bit weird doesn't it. It was actually a Steyr Puch 650 back in the mid '60s. I very nearly bought it but went for a 1275 Cooper S instead as at that time I fancied a go at rallying and I reasoned the mini would be easier and cheaper to keep on the road. My brief attempt at rally driving was dismally unsuccessful and I now regret not buying the Puch.
So, Fiats I've loved etc? It probably all started shortly after I got my first job and we bought a wee end terrace house near Blackwater Hants. Mrs J worked for BOAC at Heathrow and she and another girl - who became best friends, our families are still in close touch - would travel up each day in that girl's 500 (we're talking late '60s early '70s here) That was not far off a 60 mile daily round journey, hats off to them! The girl's husband, also a BOAC employee, and I seemed to be fixing something on it every week, in particular I remember drive shafts with stripped splines more than once! We became good friends. Both the girls got pregnant with our first children at nearly the same time and worked until they were nearly full term. The sight of these two "rolly pollys" getting in and out of this poor wee car was a source of much comment! Tweedledum and Tweedledee comes to mind.
Then there was my friend's Mirafiore 131 which was really much like a Cortina to look after, pleasant enough and reliable but it rusted terribly. an unexciting car. Then I got involved with a couple of Ladas! (Not Fiats I know, but related to the 124?) They both needed timing chains which was good fun. I've never seen engines with so much slack in a timing chain without trashing the engine. On one the chain was actually milling its way into the side of the head/block! It still ran, rather erratically, but what a racket! I never liked the Lada because of it's steering which was so "dead" and lacking in self centering. I used to hire 124s often in Italy when I worked for Firestone and I remember their driving position to be poor and the steering somewhat lacking in self centering but the Lada was a whole order of magnitude worse. The Lada's throttle pedal position, in the RHD version, would cripple you too after a few miles.
When I taught basic classes in car mechanics one of the section's vehicles was a 128. I quite liked it. We would drive it round the training centre's grounds whenever someone did a big exercise (like doing a clutch etc) which always attracted a few bets as to whether it would make it back. Interestingly - or maybe not? - the 128 - a different one - was the first engine I'd ever done a timing belt on.
Then it's fast forward to my daughter learning to drive, so around 1990? After my older boy buying a 1300 Allegro and learning to drive in it a couple of years earlier and getting a shock at what insurance cost - now a days frighteningly so - we were looking for something to insure as cheaply as possible. The 750 Panda stood out. She learned to drive in it, passed her test and went to uni in it. Then got married and set off, with it loaded to the gunnels, for southern England where the two of them had set up house. She only got as far as Carlisle before the dreaded metal water pipe (which at that time I didn't know was a weakness) You know, the one that runs along the front of the block, ruptured and allowed all the water to leak away with catastrophic consequences for the engine. Unfortunately the body was also in pretty poor condition so we, sadly, laid it to rest.
Next was when our youngest boy learned to drive. Knowing about the cheap insurance it just had to be another Panda and after quite a search, because he's very particular and it couldn't just be any old Panda, We found Felicity. 1992 Panda Parade (special edition) with metallic purply blue paint and twin sun roofs - there was an identical one for sale on the forum recently. I didn't fancy the sun roofs but he wouldn't listen! That car was bought late 90's and, although he bought a "flashy" Escort as soon as he could afford it we continued to run her until 2016 when I called it a day to welding bits of filing cabinet into her floor, sills and door bottoms! The chap who took her off our hands said he was going to restore her but I haven't heard anything. - Must give him a ring. Felicity taught me an awful lot about Pandas and the FIRE engine.
And so up to the present when we bought Becky (Panda 1.2 Dynamic Eco) and my oldest boy bought his Punto 1.4 Easy in 2016. Regulars to the forum will be familiar with my adventures with these two.
I've owned lots of other vehicles and some I loved more than the Fiats but, of the Fiats, it's Felicity (features in my forum picture) I loved the most. She had single point injection and electronic ignition, only one oxygen sensor and an easy to change Cat (not a Manicat). Spares were very cheap and easy to get, the automatic adjusters on the rear brake shoes were a very silly design, and the fabric sun roofs were falling apart - I taped and glued them up to stop the leaks - but I owned her for so long I felt I knew her more intimately than Mrs J. OOOOOW, does that sound a bit weird?
