How I got my first FIAT
Welcome to my first blog post. In this blog I will be documenting the fun and adventure that is FIAT ownership. I have been a Fiat owner for one year. This is the story of how I got a FIAT when I went to buy a Triumph TR-6.
I convinced my father to buy me a beat up old MGB between my junior and senior year in high school. I would later drive the MGB through senior year of college. Every summer I used to have the MGB towed to the beach, so I could sit in it and pretend to look cool. I wish that was only a joke. My MG broken down and was towed to many times, that my father actually looked into buying a towing company.
After college, when I had actual money, I bought myself a Porsche 914. I owned that car for 13 years and only sold it when I was unemployed for a year in 2001. So from 2001 to 2008, was the first time in many years that I did not have a fun little sports car to work on and drive around. So I won a big award at the company I work at in 2008 and a had a few thousand dollars of “found money” in my pocket. Somehow I decided to buy a Triumph TR-6. I always thought that they looked cool. I live in New Hampshire and on searching the web, I found a car dealer not to far away from me, that specialized in English Cars.
I went up to the dealer and they had MGs of all makes, many different triumphs, jaguars, and others.
They several TR-6s and when I went and sit in one, I was cramped and not comfortable at all. Disaponted, I notice the car next to the TR-6 said Spider 2000 on the side of the car.
For some reason, I don’t remember the FIAT Spider at all from the 1970’s. Maybe there were no local dealers in New Hampshire.
Anyway, this Spider 2000 had much more room then the Tr-6, and a back seat(although tiny). The interior was all ripped up for some reason. I left the dealer and went back home. The next day, I was going through craig’s list and saw a 1977 Fiat Spider. Oh that’s like the car I saw at the dealer. This is the actual photo from the ad in craiglist.
And the rest is history. I bought the car, I got a amazing deal (not that I knew it at the time) and I have spent the last year learning about FIATs, upgrading my FIAT, and meeting other FIAT owners. And last weekend, I drove 350 miles to pickup a 1975 Fiat SPider that I bought on EBAY.
I went from not even being aware the FIAT Spider to now owning two of them in just 365 days. I plan to document my adventures and misfortunes of being obsessed with FIAT in this blog.