I have a friend who owns a red one, but he has his own foreign auto repair shop, so that makes things a bit easier. I have another friend with his own foreign auto repair shop, and I saw one of these (a black one) parked in his lot waiting for service last week.
I used to own one back when I was in college (1989 or so). Mine was a 1981 and the "limited" edition model in black with the gold stripe. It was a nice car, and always got looks. A couple times while driving around with my roomates, got followed home by girls (never happend in my Ferrari). It was a 2+2 car, but the rear seats were a joke. However, with the top down, you could sit on the trunk portion, with your feet on the rear seats, while holding on to the "rollbar". Although I did get a ticket for that once. FWD with a 2 liter engine (Fuel Injected). Not very fast, but it was still alot of fun to drive. Since I was in college in Binghamton, NY, driving it through the snow during winter eventually caused the car to begin rusting out. It sat in my parents garage for years and years afterwards (I never wanted to sell it, and was hoping that one day I would restore it, yada, yada). Eventually, my parents wanted it out of the garage, and I wasn't willing to ship it out to California, so we sold it for about $500. I have pictures of it somewhere, when I get a chance I will scan them in. Dom
Found an old crappy scan, see attached. I'll try to find the original photo and scan it in at better resolution. Dom Image Unavailable, Please Login
woo hoo, another source for X1/9 taillights. EDIT: and door handles. otherwise not my cup of tea, a poor blending of lancia beta, fiat 124, and merc coupe.
Funny you should mention that I also had a 81 Black & Gold Limited edition. I used to get stopped in a small town outside Dallas all the time by a female officer. She would tell me that I really needed a front license plate and then how cute the car was. She never wrote me up The funniest outing in the Zagato was when three very tall woman from the office and I went out to lunch together. It was attack of the vixen amazons
There are a few of these running around up here in Vancouver. I passed on two of them that were for sale years ago, both were the black/gold ones. One of them, I immediately passed on when I first saw it, because the owner was a very, very... ehhh... fat man... The driver's seat was absolutely devastated, there was nothing left to it! The black/gold ones were a limited edition series for the U.S. market and they made 500 of them, for 1979 only. Only thing special about them was the colour scheme. Ones to look for would be the 1981-1982 fuel-injected versions, with the rare heated-glass removable solid roof (instead of the folding top). They are a nice FWD car... It's too bad that the ones that remain today are all in junk condition...
I've owned my 82 Zagato for 20 years. It has about 64,000 miles. I should sell it as I have too many cars but I haven't been able to bring myself to do it. My car was one of the last batch of 250 imported by Williams in Cincinnati.
It's one inexpensive PininFarina design that the common guy could afford in the US. To bad they don't last- I've watched on EBAY for one & finding a good one is very difficult. Probably lots of parts to tune up the engine if you went with the carb version.
Actually the cars stickered for $14 -15,000 which wasn't exactly inexpensive back in 1982. Although they were greatly discounted by the dealers. As far as lasting, the problems I've had with mine were mostly with the crappy German parts - had to replace the Bosch air flow meter, Bosch alternator and ZF steering rack. The Zagatos don't even rust badly. The worst spot is the leading edge of the front hood which is just a matter of swapping out with a clean one. The seats all split when the cotton thread wears out but it's an easy fix to have them restiched. The build quality of the 1982 body is a million miles ahead of any Fiat built prior to that time. The main reason there aren't any clean ones for sale are two fold (1) only 8000 built and (2) the value is too low to justify much maintenance let alone major repairs should they be needed.
They are called Lancia Beta Spyder here in Europe. I know that the taillights are as rare as rocking horse s**t. Are they the same as the Fiat x1/9?
They look a bit different. I have 4 sets of the Beta tail lights they are becoming increasingly hard to get. There is always some fvckwit that be on their mobile, not watching and will rear end you, so one can never have enough!
The Zagato's (Beta Spider to you guys on the othere side of the pond) tail lights are quite different from the X-1/9. The Lancia's actually extend around the side - they're not flat like the Fiat's. Bristol had a model (built by Zagato) that appear to have the same lights as the Lancia - but they're even more rare and difficult to find.
