I have waited for over 20 years for this....I own a 1980 Fiat Spider convertible!! I'm so excited, I barely know where to start!
Its got 37,500 original miles and is in pretty good shape. The original owner was a young woman who's father purchased the car for her college graduation gift (how cool is that!) she drove it for a few years, then married and quickly had kids while the car sat in the garage. Eventually, the father took the car back and it became part of his estate. The gentleman i purchased the car from had it for a year and did a fair amount of work to get it up and running. He decided to sell as he has several other project cars and this one doesn't have AC.
My husband thought I was crazy, but entertained my passionate quest for finding one. He was all business-like and seemingly not too interested at first. We took it for a test drive, paying attention to the important things, noises, rattles, blah, blah blah.... Then, we took it back and the Q&A session ensued with the owner. Hubby then said, "let's take it out again" and I said "why don't you take it?". He was gone for about 10 minutes (luckily, the roads around were winding around the gently rolling hills and it was a beautiful day). As he came back and was parking the car in the driveway, I caught the cutest grin on his face and knew he was hooked! I left him at the owner's place to have a beer and get down to negotiations. An hour later, he pulls up into my mom's driveway in our new car! He has spent the past 24 hours making lists of things he wants to do to the car after we pick it up next weekend
It's mostly original, as far as I can tell. Cromodora wheels, interior is good with no rips/tears/cracks in the seats or console, small crack on the dash, and minimal rust on the original paint. The top does have a small hole in it and I've left the car at my mother's to get a quote on a new one (she buys/sells cars and can get it done at a better price). I love the color and would love to keep it but it's going to need a new paint job soon. Is there a way to just do touch ups or is it better to just strip the whole thing and start over? Any advice on how to proceed with this task is appreciated! I'd love to keep it as original as possible.
So that's it in a nutshell. I'll have to login on the desktop to upload pictures and will do that asap. Will post more pics and I'm sure more questions once we get the car to its new home!
