October 1997:  Assembly

I picked up the car in October 1997 and was pleased with the results.  In a word, it was stunning - a fly yellow bathtub waiting for its parts. 

Assembling a car is a daunting task.  I will submit to you that I can probably remove every single interior part and every piece of trim and moulding in the course of two hours or so.  And, given a pile of  all of the same parts, would take days to get it all back in correctly.  This car received all new parts - mainly because the interior was being switched from tan to black.  From the windshield glass to  the new canvas top, I was finally going to have the new Fiat Spider I had been wishing for.

I fitted the mechanical components to the car first.  This included new shocks and springs, new suspension components (everything was replaced, front and rear), new wheels (from the 1981 Anniversary Edition  Spider), a new cylinder head, new Weber 40IDF/70 carburetors, a new exhaust system, and a bunch of other minor articles.

The interior work was done second, including the new top.  At the time the interior restoration parts were inferior to what is available today...this is not to say  they were bad parts, there has simply  been a resurgence in the quality of parts available for Fiats in the last few months.  But - at the time - it all looked great.