This is my 1987 Bertone X1/9 I've owned for 17 years. I bought it from the original owner who injured his back and being 6'2", couldn't get into it any longer. The kicker was he had just got done paying it off!In the 5 years he had it he only put 26,000 miles on it. It sat a long time and wouldn't start. That, combined with the problems he had getting the car serviced at the Bertone Dealer, (who was a Lincoln/Mercury/Nissan Dealer and pretty hopeless at servicing Italian cars) reluctantly compelled him to get rid of the car.
As the market for non running Fiats was not good back then, he was astounded to see someone interested in it. When he found out I was a long time Fiat enthusiast, he felt better about giving the car away!
I flat bedded it home and, with the help of my friend Tony, fixed a couple of rust spots, put a clutch and timing belt in it (you know the usual Fiat fix it stuff). My wife liked it so that helped as I like to accumulate cars. She and I drove it for about 7 years and finally parked it under a tree in our driveway. That was 1999. In that time we put about 10,000 miles on it.
There the car sat until 2008 when I decided to do something with it. I originally was going to try selling it, but after looking at, realized it was in pretty good shape. I changed the fuel filter in it, put a spare battery in it and gave it a shot at starting. Well what do you know, it started right up! It sounded good, too. Really smooth and quiet.Looking the car over and hearing it run I made up my mind it would be a shame to not get it going for at least a little while. I knew what was done to the car and what it needed.
My goal is to get it reliable to drive to work during spring/summer for a couple of years. I'm going to paint it because the paint is pretty dead and I'd like to try my hand at it. No concourse restoration here, just a daily driver.
