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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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The problem becomes that it’s too good to use or put miles on, but it’s not a museum exhibit, it’s something that has been used and has some miles on it and museums want ferraris not Fiat’s, so you end up with the car being a very tidy ball and chain not knowing what to do with it
 
Need to have a look at the brake light switch.
Just before Christmas, I had it out the garage, was running for about half an hour, then the brake lights come on themselves.

Too cold just now to mess about with it.
 

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Need to have a look at the brake light switch.
Just before Christmas, I had it out the garage, was running for about half an hour, then the brake lights come on themselves.

Too cold just now to mess about with it.

Thinking of how you added the mat: trim under the dash..
I would check the pedal area and switch / wiring
 
Got the car out, started it. No brake lights on.

Nee badges on. Think car is now finished.
Before and after- the old ones weren’t bad just a bit tarnished.
 

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Come across this video on YouTube.....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcj5pmkqMYk

Worth a watch- anyway was watching it on my telly in the living room and my 5 year old come bounding over-

“Daddy, your yellow punto car is on the telly” ❤️

When I was little I had a book about how different things where made. Full of typical 80s style illustrations of factories, there was a page dedicated to how cars are made and it had a production line drawing of lots of brightly coloured partially built cars. This video reminded me of that book with the line of brightly coloured puntos all being made on the same line together.
 
New car colours these days are ****

100% agree, there was a news story just the other day that said of all the cars sold in 2020. A quarter of them where grey, and something like 68% of all new cars were black, white, silver or grey and then if you throw in the blue ones you’re heading towards not much under 90% of cars being bland colours.

Back when your mk1 was new there were a lot more brightly coloured little cars about
 
Come across this video on YouTube.....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcj5pmkqMYk

Worth a watch- anyway was watching it on my telly in the living room and my 5 year old come bounding over-

“Daddy, your yellow punto car is on the telly” [emoji3590]
That is a very cool video, and it does remind me of just what a neat piece of design the mk1 was. God I wish cars were good looking today. [emoji853]
 
Absolutely boils my p*** as well.

Do you want white? Sparkly white? white with a hint of blue? no?

You don't? how about Silver? a darker silver? maybe gun metal? How about sparkly black or flat black?

None of those what about navy blue? or maybe flat red? not those? Well we also do triple coat Red...looks like red metallic and costs 800 quid? There's a special order cornflower blue... looks like metallic costs as much as a week at centre parcs.

:bang:
 
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Boring colours are related to perceived very poor state of the economy and the poor chance of an improvement.

Skirt lengths in fashion are an indication of optimism too, short skirts indicate optimism.

From a very interesting documentary some years ago.

Looks like boring colours and very modest clothes will be here for some while.
 
On of my neighbours bought a brand new Porsche 911 (992) last year and bearing in mind these are a £83k minimum they went for grey. Not metallic, not matt, just a flat primer grey.

Now don’t get me wrong it is a lovely looking car it just needs to have been painted after they applied the primer
 
Looks like boring colours and very modest clothes will be here for some while.

We specced our car 3 years ago, as well as all the usual suspects (gunmetal silver, red, black etc.) we had the option of a nice orange, a strong solid blue and the Almond Green we currently have. Also multiple choices for the roof and trims.

Current options if speccing same car today..

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So 2 colours and grey...though the blue and red are a nice vibrant shade at least.
 
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Do you want white? Sparkly white? white with a hint of blue? no?

You don't? how about Silver? a darker silver? maybe gun metal? How about sparkly black or flat black?

None of those what about navy blue? or maybe flat red? not those? Well we also do triple coat Red...looks like red metallic and costs 800 quid? There's a special order cornflower blue... looks like metallic costs as much as a week at centre parcs.
:bang:

:ROFLMAO: this is absolutely true, my 'new' car is sparkly white which the vast majority of them are, either that or black. You could get it in a deep red or a blue but those would've cost you near enough £1000 extra. I miss the ridiculous green of my Punto :(
 
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