I walked over to garage "Moerenhout" in Mortsel, Belgium, which is specialised in Abarths today, and took these pictures. Most of the cars in these pictures are replicas of rallycars based on stock fiats, or stock cars converted for rally use. The small dark blue one is a real Abarth, I'm not sure about the one in the last 2 pictures, and I'm not sure about the one in the first picture. The rest are replicas, but I thought I'd share them anyway. The guy who runs the garage is an ex-rally driver. He has a lot of nice real Abarths, including a few open-wheeled Formula cars, but the garage was closed on the day of my visit (typical...). I guess he only leaves the cheaper ones and the replicas outside. Anyway, enough chit-chat, here are the pictures. http://s35.photobucket.com/albums/d176/DavkeG/ and here's a link to the guy's website. http://www.abarth-gmr.be/new/
Hi, DavkeG, This is an amazing coincidence. I've been interested in a Fiat Abarth lately, and I've been looking at Morenhout's web site a lot. So you can imagine my surprise when I thought I'd search the Ferrarichat for Abarth and found your post that you had just been to Guy's shop! Anyway, I'm considering getting a Fiat Abarth in Europe (I live in California) and driving it to Spa for the World Abarth gathering in June then shipping it home. Guy seems to have a lot of cars he's advertising, but he doesn't do a good job of answering my questions when I ask them on his forum. How did the cars you saw there look to you? The Fiat 600 and 850 Coupe are both replicas, and he's asking about 6000 Euros for each of them. Did they look like good cars to you? Was the paint shiny? Did you see rust on them? Were the interiors nice? It's very hard to evaluate cars in pictures, as they usually look better than they do when you're looking at them in person. I would very much appreciate any thoughts you have on the cars you saw, as both of those are cars I would consider buying from him. Thank you very much, Jim
Jim, the paint was nice, but since they'd been standing uitside for a while, it seemed quite dull. Nothing a good polish can't fix I guess. I didn't see any rust a first sight, but to be honest, I didn't do a thorough inspection of the cars. About the interiors, the cars had a few extra instruments on the sides (no idea what they are for), and the seats seemed to be in good condition, although they seemed like regular seats, instead of racy/sporty ones. I'll be out of the country for a few days next week, but if you want I can go back to take a better look at the cars after I get back. Just tell me specific things to look for etc. Greetings, Dave.
Germany can keep there VW's and England can have there Mini's.....but there is just something that is so lovable when it comes to those little Fiat 500's
Dave, It's probably better that we write directly rather than on this public forum. Would you mind writing me at [email protected], and I can write back? Thank you very much for your offer, Jim
