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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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Thing that gets on my t*ts is the interior colour - you can have any colour you like as long as it's black. Go on any new car configurator now and the ONLY colour available is black. A lot of them (tried one last week - Polo I think) don't even have an interior configurator bit - just skips it because there is no choice

So you get an outside 'choice' which is greyblacksilverwhite (50 shades of grey) plus a blue that's really grey and a red that's really grey (one of them - VW again I think - even has a yellow that's really grey). And an interior 'choice' of black, black, black, black or black.

As has been said, acceptance of it is linked to economic and general other misery of life at the moment (I am a European expat - life is REALLY tough). But it is also cynical manipulation on the part of the manufacturers - running only one interior colour line and painting all the cars grey but charging extra for colour is WAY cheaper than offering about 100 colour choices, as Lancia (Fiat really - it's 100% Punto S1 mechanically) did on my Y when it was new. The Germans started it - they did their cars silver or white because those were their racing colours and it gives a 'techy', 'hewn from steel' look. And hey, it's cheaper too. And as everyone is trying to pretend to be like the Germans, the consequences were predictable.
 
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From Auto****e - apparently there were 112 exterior colours available. And a pretty amazing range of interior colours, mostly in alcantara.
 

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Just wrap it. Probably no less a cost than speccing a colour from new but you get to choose the details and can re do it when you get bored. Save some film for fixing minor scuffs. What could possibly go wrong? Potentially, quite a lot, because a proper job demands serious skills around windows, door edges, handles etc.
 
tbf you could get a pretty good professional wrap for the cost some manufacturers charge for a ceramic coating.. Which is worth at best about 3.99 and an hour to apply it shoddily lol.
If i ever bought a brand new car (never gonna happen) i would totally whatever i thought was most resalable and get it wrapped even if it did come in 10k colour options
 
I think my mileage will be around that this year too ?not been far either. I would use it just as and when you can , at least you have a garage to store it ?? If you sold it would you buy another classic? I bet you wouldn’t get anything as good for the money .
 
Probably not. Have other priorities in my life at the moment and unfortunately the punto isn’t really one of them.

My home life and my health and happiness is my priority just not as I’ve been through a tough time last couple of years and unfortunately the car has sat there, and tbh even though it doesn’t cost anything, it’s still there abs I’m not enjoying it like I did before
 
sure you need to keep other things a priority. I hope things improve for you soon ??, hopefully now restrictions are being lifted we will all feel the benefits ???
 
Even my main car has done 2k since July.. so 200 odd miles on a weekend and nice day car isn't that bad.

Obviously do what you need to do for you but no one has used anything really this year.
 
Haha no I was checking all the bulbs were working and my wee nephew happened to take a photo just as they were all lit up.

All is well with the electrics

Fun fact on a mk1 punto it is like possible to produce the same light show while travelling along the road....

Reverse lights come on if you press the lever down and move it to the right...selecting reverse is unnecessary.

Used to use that on tail gaters back in the day...
 
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