Undervalued Fiat X1/9s!

it was a very nice looking little FIAT but woefully underpowered.

Did you ever see the one with the wild fender flares ?

I thought a flared X1/9 with a chevy V8 or a Ferrari 308 engine would be Way cool

 

I had 3 X1/9s (plus two for parts!)

SLOW cars, basically unreliable, rust prone. Great fun when working, but not a "real" car that one could trust to drive cross country. These days good ones are cheap -- but there's very few good ones left. Most are rotted from the bottom up, and would be upside down in value if you filled the gas tank!

All that said, if I could find one around here cheap that ran, I'd probably pick it up.

 

That was my favorite car back in 1973! (or 74) with the small bumpers...

A real beauty ....

To have owned 3 of them over the years..

Your a lucky man!

JB

 

I test drove one once and found it great fun.

 

had one of these in school bought in FL moved to Conn, the first snow i could not find the car. Not a good car.

vince

 

I think William is talking about the Abarth version

 

A fave...twincam 2.0 conversion is nice, as was rotary conversion.
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buah! just wrote a nice eulegy and my computer puked out on me.

anyhoo, gist is, underpowered, yes, but underdriven by most people also. these are cheap enough to thrash, and trust me, WOT at 5-9k rpm on city streets gets the veins pumping. with the right setup and a good sporty steering wheel (the stockies are C.R.A.P. if you have it, lose it for a chunky sports wheel) there is a real feeling of race-car going on.

if you want inspiration for the little sewing machine in back, check this out.

my first one, i bought for $1300. spent say $4k fixing up stupid shyte, then sold it for $500.

my current X has a nice torquey twin-cam in the back seat. currently at the end of a performance rebuild. spent $6-7k getting a beautiful pristine vehicle, and by the time i'm finished making it how it should be, guess i'll be somewhere in the order of $30k into it.

cheap when i rationalize it, i'll have a sweet car that to me has as nice looks as some of my favourite ferrari's, the performance to match it's looks, and it's still $8k cheaper than my friend's Mazda 626 blandmobile.

personally, i like the fact that they're cheap. i'm not much into resale yet, but try having a ferrari habit like an X habit where you can pretty much just buy one on a whim.

here's a gallery i've been putting together for some time on XoneNine.com: here's some standard X's and some racing X's.

 

some X1/9 vids, courtesy of Myron Samila of Xweb.

(if you loved that mini doing an auto-x, you GOTTA check out the first vid )

http://www.wiredmotorsports.com/2003/pitl0302/pitl0302-angelo.wmv - 6mb
http://www.gyorsulas.hu/download/video/030607/csabavsati.mpg - 2.5mb
http://www.gyorsulas.hu/download/video/03.01_fiatlada.mpg - 5.3mb
http://www.gyorsulas.hu/download/video/03.01_fiatskoda.mpg - 3.7mb
http://www.gyorsulas.hu/download/video/03.01_fiattyper.mpg - 3.7mb
http://www.gyorsulas.hu/download/video/030419/041903.mpg - 2.4mb
http://maletero.escharlamotor.org/Videos/Fiat%20X1%209%20drift.AVI - 600kb
http://maranello.dy.fi:8080/videos/x19.mpg - 2.7mb

 

Ash, thanks for those links. I agree X1/9 is greatly underated. Maybe the pure power level is low, but the 'chuckability' index is way up there. I loved mine and always regretted having sold it in HK when I came back to Oz. If I'd had it here I might never have scratched that 308 itch! One thing that works better on the X1/9 than the 308 - the roof; because 308 is restrained within the opening it squeaks at different temperatures, X1/9 overflies the opening and so doesn't have the problem.

 

just a pic that caught my eye from a fellow X-head today.

full size version
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Sounds like you needed a better mechanic I know several people with Xs that have driven cross country many times. If you look around you can find nice non rusted ones. When I purchased my Scorpions in California, I also saw several very nice Xs. The most interested one was supercharged very perky..

Rodney

 

any more details on this one? sc'ing is on my possible to-do list, got a friend here who's putting a 2 litre twin-cam volumex in his.

 

I can sum up the X1/9 in just one word- JUNK

 

Thats a little harsh.

 

I have sent a couple of emails out to the California rear engine FIAT guys. They should be able to get some pictures etc.

The funniest thing I have seen was not an X with a twin cam but rather a 850 with a twin cam stuffed in it, running a vw transaxle. The space between the timing belt and body was only about a 1/4 inch at most On the other hand it was lightning fast. We were at Fiat Freak-out at the Dragons back to back in Tennessee. I was in my 16V Scorpion getting wild around corners at 50 mph. He passed me like I was standing still.

 

Dear Mr.Zinhead,
Sometimes the truth is very,very harsh.But its the truth none the less.
and I'm talking from experience not fantasy.

 

It's unfortunate that dbcooper has had a negative experience with an X1/9. To the contrary, I've found the model to be fun, durable and economical.

I've owned x1/9's for the past 25 years ('79 carb and '83 FI models). Each has been driven over 170,000 miles. Reliability has been a strong point.

My cars have been used as daily drivers, exhibited at shows, used for track days and autocrosses. As long as they are looked after properly, they will take good care of you.

By today's standards they lack horsepower (in stock form) yet they are a blast to drive.

 

Wow - X1/9 flashbacks. I had a silver/beige '81 with the big powerful 1.5 liter, 75 rumbling horses. The car was really a joy to drive, sounded cool for a 4 banger and got a lot of nice stares - someone once asked me if it was a Ferrari (must have missed the 'FIAT X1/9' decals on the side...)

I ended up personally crash testing mine at 45 mph in a rainy intersection where I hit a big domestic station wagon. The tubular racing frame in the X1/9 saved my life. Literally. The front of the car was gone, but both doors opened and neither I or my g/f was even injured. Anyone who says these are flimsy little cars...

I missed the counterclockwise tach, square gear knob, and other unique stuff. I DON'T miss the chronic rust, chronically broken door locks, bad ignition, etc. Really a poorly built car, but the parts were so cheap compared to Ferraris that it really wasn't too traumatic.

Jon

 

if anyone's ever thrown one of these around they'll know they're anything but flimsy, the torsional rigidity is great.

there is every now and then a show on some discovery channel thing about crash-testing and they shunt an X at like 40mph. i remember hearing somewhere that the X and a volvo were the only (non-luxury) cars which passed in advance some mega-strict crash laws which were never introduced, as it turned out no other cars would be marketable... or something like that.

 

your X-1/9 experiences are obviously with non-U.S. spec cars.Why do you suppose that FIAT no longer sells cars in the U.S?The U.S.being the largest car market on the planet.is it because they dont want to? no its because of junk like the X-1/9. F.I.A.T. commited suicide selling junk like the X-1/9.call me what you want to but the facts speak for themselves.Non U.S. spec cars seem to be not quite as bad but they are still X-1/9's and thats junk.
"on a quiet night,you can here the fiats rust"

 

I've given a lot of thought to building an X with a 308 engine. I think that would give it the proper amount of kick.....I know from a past mistake that a 500ci/500hp caddy engine has a bit too much kick for it