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| The Discovery of the Fiat | |||||||||||
| - During the summer, I work at a summer camp up in the Adirondack mountains. I had always wanted a roadster, and had always thought of owning an MG-B or an MG-A ... convertable, of course. However, as a student, I had a severely limited income, and really could only afford to look at cars I saw for sale on the side of the road. However, on my way back from camp I took a different way home for the first time, and passed by this little red car for sale on someone's lawn, about 3 miles from my house ... go figure. I stopped immediately, and looked ... though already expecting to see a price yet again too far above my means. However, I saw the owner only wanted 900 dollars or best offer for the car, so I took down the number and raced home to consult my parents. After telling me they would help me pay for it if I promised to work it off. My family owns / operates a farm ... so 'working it off' for us has a different meaning entirely than mowing the lawn or feeding the dogs. That night, I called the owner of the Fiat up and after about two minutes he agreed to take $500.00 in cash. The next day my dad and I went to the house and heard the car run. We climbed all over the car, inside and out, heard it run, smelled it run rich, hear it backfire when you turned it off, knew about the leaking brakes, saw the rust starting on it, but decided $500.00 was a good price for what we would get. So, my dad hopped in as I couldn't then drive a standard and I followed him home. The most exciting part was when I saw dad was doing 55mph ... I was ecstatic the car could do highway speeds!!All the way home I was expecting the engine to fall out or something of the sort. And that was how I became the owner of a Fiat. After a summer's worth of hard farm labor, it was paid off, and the car was mine! | |||||||||||
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| This is the car getting its first bath the day I bought it. The white spots are the numerous paint chips on the very poor home paint job the car had ... but luckily the only rust spots were very small paint bubbles on the corners of both doors, which I have since ground out. | |||||||||||
| IN RETROSPECT: The things on the car that needed immediate attention were a complete brake-job (check out the funny stories for the mechanical condition of the car), major front steering/suspension work, a carb rebuild, fix exhaust leaks, new tires, new filters, new rubber hoses, new tires ... but otherwise, it seemed to be in pretty decent shape for the money ... or so I thought. |
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