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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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Try cornering fast in a Cabrio, its a bit of a wobbly mess to say the least! The best part about the mk1's was definitely the more communicative hydraulic P/S

I must be a sadist but I preferred the absolutely unassisted set up in the 55s. The hydraulic set up still felt like it had precious little feel to me, although it didn't require the he-man histrionics while parking either.

Hydraulic system was nicer than later dual drive set ups though, seem to recall Simons car is none PAS so a bit of a work out.
 
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I must be a sadist but I preferred the absolutely unassisted set up in the 55s. The hydraulic set up still felt like it had precious little feel to me, although it didn't require the he-man histrionics while parking either.

Hydraulic system was nicer than later dual drive set ups though, seem to recall Simons car is none PAS so a bit of a work out.
Well I agree no assistance is better for road feel, my mk2 Panda was great for knowing what the wheels were actually doing, but with an assisted setup the hydraulic system in mk1's was a completely different world to the lifeless steering in mk2s, not to mention more reliable...
 
Well I agree no assistance is better for road feel, my mk2 Panda was great for knowing what the wheels were actually doing, but with an assisted setup the hydraulic system in mk1's was a completely different world to the lifeless steering in mk2s, not to mention more reliable...

One of the reasons I have my current car is that is one of the last mainstream cars to have hydraulic steering so I do appreciate it over electric..I was just spoiled by spending my formative years in Skinny tyred unassisted Fiats where you could feel everything going on.
 
yep, single favourite part of the cinqs is the steering feel and the only reason i prefer them to the seicentos really, not that you can't swap it all back.
I had a mk1 P60s once upon a time as well with no PAS - great little car. But yes, hydraulic>electric - theres a reason that new mclaren road cars have hydraulic steering despite the weight disadvantage, its just betterer lol
 
Got to ask, if they were using a 75 cam, how did they keep the power down to 60bhp?

They still only had single point fuel injection (one injector where the carb would have sat on older fires) also the original 60 only had 58 so a small power bump wouldn't have necessarily been noticeable.
 
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The multipoint injection probably helped save fuel as it injected closer to the ports and a finer spray but wouldn’t have necessarily have added power, also the ECU has a lot to do with the power produced
 
I see! Apologies for straying off topic again, but that raises the question: how comes the mk2 8v had 60bhp when that had multi-point injection?
MPI was added for the 75 for the purpose of power, along with the more aggressive cam. The mk2 8v wouldn't have had the cam and only retained the MPI for more efficient fueling all done via the ECU.

Given your username you really ought to try a mk1 (if you haven't already). They're so different from mk2's & Grande/Evo/Punto. I really miss my mk1, if a good 90 came up I'd be very tempted
 
Given your username you really ought to try a mk1 (if you haven't already). They're so different from mk2's & Grande/Evo/Punto. I really miss my mk1, if a good 90 came up I'd be very tempted

Totally agree with this, the mk1 Punto was a great little car I bought one in about 2004, it was a 1999 and had only 50k on the clock for just £600 try buying any 5 year old car for £600 now !! It was only a basic 55 model but is drove really well and was simple. Prior to that my now ex wife had owned a cinquecento which again was very simple which prompted the move to the Punto. Then when I was working in the motor trade they had dozens of mk2s which were nice little cars especially when new, which was why I bought my Mk2b when it was 3 year old. As I’ve had the grande and now the Evo, (the Evo being essentially the same as the last of the punto’s) I consider myself to have owned every revision of Punto there is. It’s very hard to say anything bad about the mk1, my only regret is not getting a cabrio when they were selling for £500 on gumtree about 2010. Loads of them about then, hens teeth now and a good one can be very costly
 
I agree with Andy and Didge, if anything the mk1 was my Fiat ownership stopped there.

I was ready to go out and buy a very nice 2b 1.4 16v in extremely rare spec (139 ever sold 45 left now dynamic plus iirc) literally all the toys only 10k miles from new, as new condition to replace my mk1 85 elx and unfortunately my immediate reaction was upon driving it was EW! Grandes in my price range at the time were 1.4 8v as well which after a 16v mk1 drove like it weighed the same as a small moon.

Uno to mk1 Punto you could feel the progress but it was recognisably the same kind of experience, but at mk2 punto they lost the small Fiat feeling a bit, and I felt it was gone by the time they got to the lower powered Grande (sorry puntofan!).

I did try all the 169 Pandas...literally all of them from 1.1 petrol to 100hp and diesel and I think they were the last of the "proper" Fiat's. 500 is kinda but bit expensive for what it is but all still had the dual drive steering and an electric throttle that added delay where previously there was none.
 
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I agree with Andy and Didge, if anything the mk1 was my Fiat ownership stopped there.

I was ready to go out and buy a very nice 2b 1.4 16v in extremely rare spec (139 ever sold 45 left now dynamic plus iirc) literally all the toys only 10k miles from new, as new condition to replace my mk1 85 elx and unfortunately my immediate reaction was upon driving it was EW! Grandes in my price range at the time were 1.4 8v as well which after a 16v mk1 drove like it weighed the same as a small moon.

Uno to mk1 Punto you could feel the progress but it was recognisably the same kind of experience, but at mk2 punto they lost the small Fiat feeling a bit, and I felt it was gone by the time they got to the lower powered Grande (sorry puntofan!).

I did try all the 169 Pandas...literally all of them from 1.1 petrol to 100hp and diesel and I think they were the last of the "proper" Fiat's. 500 is kinda but bit expensive for what it is but all still had the dual drive steering and an electric throttle that added delay where previously there was none.

I also agree with everything said here, the mk1 was a great car, is still a great car, i actually got a 60s for my first car but due to unforseen family circumstances (parents divorce) i didnt really get it, mums car at the time blew up so she got the punto, then she moved away. I ended up moving in with her a few years later and drove it alot at that point before i got my own house and a new car. Brilliant little car it was. She moved onto a mk2 sporting - which to me lost alot of that fiat-esque-ness. Despite the 60s being non-PAS model and having pretty heavy steering for manoeuvring the mk2's have always felt heavy and clumsy to me by comparison. Only GP i've driven was a heavily modified tjet sporting, which is hard to make comparisons with really. We have our panda 169 100hp now and I do love the thing, it feels very fiat imo - but that electric throttle, god i hate that thing, has killed so much of the peppyness and the get up and go feel the earlier fiats with cable throttles had. I wish I could find a way to have the system mapped without going full bore into very expensive full aftermarket ecus but doesnt seem possible :( hey-ho love it anyway despite that.

The very last detail to the car- that’s it done- there is actually nothing else to do now. A reproduction of the original dealer sticker for the glass on the boot to match the plates and under bonnet sticker.

Mot day friday next week......
Its been a long road, but now you can enjoy it and spend endless hours trying to keep it looking fresh lol.
 
I was ready to go out and buy a very nice 2b 1.4 16v in extremely rare spec (139 ever sold 45 left now dynamic plus iirc) literally all the toys only 10k miles from new, as new condition to replace my mk1 85 elx and unfortunately my immediate reaction was upon driving it was EW! Grandes in my price range at the time were 1.4 8v as well which after a 16v mk1 drove like it weighed the same as a small moon.

Touching on my mk2 I genuinely believe it’s the worst of the Punto lineup (bold statement again), it was lifeless compared to the mk1 but at least the Grande onward Puntos hold some sort of comfort and premium (for the time) interior etc. The mk2 was plasticky, noisy and very cheap feeling.

The mk1 was actually my last Fiat before I got my 2013 Punto, I jumped ship across several cars for a few years, a Renault, Saab & a Smart, all good in their own rights tbh but ultimately I never got that feeling you get, (I hope this isn’t specific to me), when you come out of a petrol station and you can’t help but admire your own car under the forecourt lights.
I’ve always loved the styling of Puntos and the final facelift is no exception, if it weren’t for the TwinAir engine spicing things up a bit it wouldn’t be a very exciting drive mind....
 
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