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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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What would be harder to get in the event of damage? Have a feeling undamaged elx wheel trims will be rocking horse poo.

You say that but i can hardly imagine bravo speedlines are a common thing - heck its rare to see a bravo (unless like me there is one outside your house), its even rarer to see an abarth kitted bravo and rarer still to see a bravo with the speedlines on it. I am almost tempted to make an offer on them they are so cool and rare. I can see the desire to keep this punto all original as it came from factory but i also think you couldn't find a better wheel to fit - my only issue would be that i think a mk1 on 15s will look a little silly without dropping the suspension a little bit - like to GT height. Its your call Simon, we can't tell you what to do just give our opinions... But it is you that has to look at the car all the time and live with it.
 
My wife (who hates my Punto as I love it more than her) has advised me to keep the steelies on as she would prefer it to be factory.

That's the other thing, no mk1 come with 15s from factory and I know it's a set of wheels and they're changeable, but they need tyres etc and it's an expensive mistake to make if I don't like them on the car.

I have 8x elx trims incase of damage lol.
Like my own wee parts dept
 
My wife (who hates my Punto as I love it more than her) has advised me to keep the steelies on as she would prefer it to be factory.

That's the other thing, no mk1 come with 15s from factory and I know it's a set of wheels and they're changeable, but they need tyres etc and it's an expensive mistake to make if I don't like them on the car.

I have 8x elx trims incase of damage lol.
Like my own wee parts dept

Good times, lol!
 
I would honestly keep the steelies and trims.

Originality for a car as mint/timewarp as this is the most important thing IMO.

It's factory spec and should stay that way as much as possible.

Know what you mean about parts supply btw, i'm the same with Cento parts now, i reckon i stock much more bits than most Fiat dealers.... not that it's particularly hard these days :p
 
Decision made!

Wheels are not going on the car.
I'm going to keep the 14" steels and elx trims, save myself a couple of hundred quid in tyres and sell off the abarth bravo wheels.

If anyone is after a set make me an offer, never been on a car, a few storage marks, brand new fiat centre caps. Rare as fook.

I'd just ruin my Punto as I'd want to lower it and all that and can't be arsed with all that
 
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