Malteser saying hi.

[Ziffa]

Hi Guys, I'm a noob to the whole forum thing, I own a Classic 500L and I'm slowly learning that a "10 minuet job" is easily a 3hr job, when doing one's best to not break or strip anything. My favorite tools so far is a blow torch on low, a decent set of spanners and a whirly wire brush. The car (Perlina) is a mostly original specimen, with lots of surface rust to deal with under the floor.
I'll try posting updates, more than anything, to remember what I've done to the damn thing.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Hi Guys, I'm a noob to the whole forum thing, I own a Classic 500L and I'm slowly learning that a "10 minuet job" is easily a 3hr job, when doing one's best to not break or strip anything. My favorite tools so far is a blow torch on low, a decent set of spanners and a whirly wire brush. The car (Perlina) is a mostly original specimen, with lots of surface rust to deal with under the floor.
I'll try posting updates, more than anything, to remember what I've done to the damn thing.

Hello Ziffa and welcome to the forum.

This was the first forum I joined and posted on back in 2017 and I've not regretted it for one minute - Friendly people with a great depth of practical knowledge. My daughter learned to drive in a Panda when she went to university, a white 750 with carburetor and points type ignition, and we've had Pandas in the family ever since - she's now in her early 50s with teenage kids and a daughter at Uni. Even before that Fiats just seemed to crop up in our daily lives. When we first set up in married life in the 1970s, my wife traveled to work in a 500 which belonged to her friend and another friend had a Mirafiori which I helped him maintain. First car I ever did a cam belt on was a 128 and my oldest boy ran a 1.4 Punto for a number of years before it was written off by a kamikaze lane changer in heavy traffic - not his fault. I can't imagine life without a Fiat being part of it! My Mrs runs around in a 2010 1.2 dynamic eco.

 

[Ziffa]

Hello Ziffa and welcome to the forum.

This was the first forum I joined and posted on back in 2017 and I've not regretted it for one minute - Friendly people with a great depth of practical knowledge. My daughter learned to drive in a Panda when she went to university, a white 750 with carburetor and points type ignition, and we've had Pandas in the family ever since - she's now in her early 50s with teenage kids and a daughter at Uni. Even before that Fiats just seemed to crop up in our daily lives. When we first set up in married life in the 1970s, my wife traveled to work in a 500 which belonged to her friend and another friend had a Mirafiori which I helped him maintain. First car I ever did a cam belt on was a 128 and my oldest boy ran a 1.4 Punto for a number of years before it was written off by a kamikaze lane changer in heavy traffic - not his fault. I can't imagine life without a Fiat being part of it! My Mrs runs around in a 2010 1.2 dynamic eco.

That's really sweet! thanks for sharing.

I'm the 3rd owner of mine and my gran was the second for approximately 35 years. Perlina was technically the first car I "Drove"/steered, on the way back from my great grandfather, gran would tell me to hold the steering going down an un-used, sideroad, not quite driving, but for a 6-8 year old, it was enough to fall in love with driving. Eventually I "bought" it off her for 10Lm.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

That's really sweet! thanks for sharing.

I'm the 3rd owner of mine and my gran was the second for approximately 35 years. Perlina was technically the first car I "Drove"/steered, on the way back from my great grandfather, gran would tell me to hold the steering going down an un-used, sideroad, not quite driving, but for a 6-8 year old, it was enough to fall in love with driving. Eventually I "bought" it off her for 10Lm.

We've been to your lovely island a number of times and had a great experience every time. However it's been a few years since our last visit. So I'm interested to know if all the old busses and cars are as much in evidence these days as they used to be?

 

[christboy2123]

welcome.

 

[Ziffa]

We've been to your lovely island a number of times and had a great experience every time. However it's been a few years since our last visit. So I'm interested to know if all the old busses and cars are as much in evidence these days as they used to be?

Good to hear!!
It's been a minute since the good buses were around, most were either scrapped, sold abroad or hidden away in storage (in 2011). Having said that, every year one or two of the proper oldies are "released" back into the wild as event transports, mostly weddings and chartered to haul tourists around.

Classic cars are becoming ever more popular, (as weekend cars). I personally think that they are slowly gaining in popularity, because there isn't anywhere to race a proper race car, aside from in hilclimbs, and a good number of owners my age, (30s) have got their cars from their parents or grandparents. Locally cars seem to stay in the family pretty often. I personally am an example of this. There are Vintage events pretty often on the weekends, usually club-specific, but there is a "brand?" "Company?", that is about vintage vehicles in general named "Rotta", they have a YT channel that's fairly active too.

Unfortunately, Malta has become quite built up. Most towns are now overlapping and don't have the same character that they used to, but having said that, she's still a sweet place to visit.

When did you last visit?

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Good to hear!!
It's been a minute since the good buses were around, most were either scrapped, sold abroad or hidden away in storage (in 2011). Having said that, every year one or two of the proper oldies are "released" back into the wild as event transports, mostly weddings and chartered to haul tourists around.

Classic cars are becoming ever more popular, (as weekend cars). I personally think that they are slowly gaining in popularity, because there isn't anywhere to race a proper race car, aside from in hilclimbs, and a good number of owners my age, (30s) have got their cars from their parents or grandparents. Locally cars seem to stay in the family pretty often. I personally am an example of this. There are Vintage events pretty often on the weekends, usually club-specific, but there is a "brand?" "Company?", that is about vintage vehicles in general named "Rotta", they have a YT channel that's fairly active too.

Unfortunately, Malta has become quite built up. Most towns are now overlapping and don't have the same character that they used to, but having said that, she's still a sweet place to visit.

When did you last visit?

Last time we spent a "proper" holiday there was in 1995 but we've been into Valletta about 3 times on cruise ships, last time was in 2005. I remember a pretty terrifying trip back from having visited Gozo when we caught one of the old busses when we got off the ferry and had to go down a long hill. The driver did a lot of skillful double declutching downward gearchanging to assist the brakes but you could smell the brakes were obviously getting very hot. It was then that I noticed the conductor was hanging onto the large handbrake lever for all he was worth. Luckily there was nothing in front of us and I don't think the other passengers noticed how nearly out of control we had been - I did feel pretty uncomfortable.

I hope Malta is not going the same way as Cyprus. We used to go to Cyprus quite a lot because we had relatives living there and Mrs J worked for BOAC so we could go standby very cheaply. Back in those days Nisi beach was exactly that, a lovely golden sandy beach with just the Nisi beach hotel (recently built back then) the sand bar over to the wee island and some very basic beach side restaurants. To day it's just so commercial it's not our "scene" at all.