The Background, The Find, The Drive, The Test Drive, The Offer, The Drive Home,

What Was Wrong, & Total Cost of Car.

The Background

This whole story begins with the first time I laid my eyes on the car of my dreams. It was the summer before my senior year of high school. I was at a Dunkin' Doughnuts at about dusk when two individuals pulled up in a 1980 FIAT Spider. I immediately fell in love with its style, shape and sound. I knew it was car that I wanted.

When I was growing up I had always helped my father rebuild his classic Ford Mustangs as well as other classic cars. I too was an auto enthusiast who enjoyed reading my Road&Track and Motor Trend, usually drooling over the classic European cars found in their periodic specials of classics such as Austin Heleays or the BMW Z-series. I always knew I wanted to work on classic car, but I just didn't know where my focus would be. I wouldn't want to work on Fords or GMs because thats what my father had worked on for all his life. I looked at getting a Kit car but the price was out of my range. I found a lot of interest in MG's, however I have heard that they are nearly impossible to keep running. So I tough I was at loss for then, but then I met the Fiat, and it just so happened it was for sale.

So when I told them I wanted to ditch my 1988 Ford Tempo POS for a FIAT Convertible, my parents about had a coronary. "Those things break down ever five miles, plus they are a fire hazard," screamed my mother confusing the car between a Ford and a Fiero. My dad took a more logical approach and actually went with me to test drive the car. When we went to look at car and to drive it, I immediately fell in love with the way it accelerated, handled and cornered.  My Father, however, was mildly impressed. "It had a lot of rust and the price was just too much for its condition ($2K)" he said. We drove home that sunny afternoon talking it over, and not to my pleasure, decided that we would not get the car as I would need a very reliable car to make the three hour trip to and from college the following year. Moreover, I would need something with more than 5 cubic feet of luggage space for all of my stuff. I agreed and, a year later, was almost thankful when I was stuck in one of the worst northern Missouri winters yet. That FIAT would have never survived as a daily driver then.

So over the last four years here at Truman State University, I went in and out of thinking of getting a FIAT. I finally realized that I would probably have to wait until after graduation to get one. Moreover, it would have to be a second car, a pleasure car. Fair enough, besides I was able to score a 1996 Chevy Cavalier my freshman year, and then a 1998 Isuzu Rodeo my senior year. (Kirksville winters are really tough). Then, the Christmas break of my senior year, I began to look for my dream.

The FIND

It was a cold and bitter January 2nd. It had snowed all day and all night. My girlfriend (now wife) Melinda and my family were snowed in. Everything was closed because of the storm and even Mel, who was supposed to leave that day, couldn't get a flight out of St. Louis. So as bored as we possibly could be I decided to go onto the interest and start looking at some Fiat related websites. I found a lot of interesting stuff, but one thing caught my eye. I stumbled onto Classifieds2000. I went browsing and found that every Fiat they had listed was for sale was in California, even a couple that were free to those who could tow them away. As interesting as those were I was not going to be able to get a Fiat from California. Classifides2000 has a great feature called "Cool Notify", in which you list a set of criteria and they will e-mail you ads matching those criteria for a period of time. Although I was not really in the market yet I decided to see what Cool Notify could get me. I selected FIAT Spider from 1972 - 1979 (pre-FI), and for under $2K.

I received about an ad a week, each one sparking my interest for a FIAT Spider. Then about three weeks later, in late January, I got an ad for a 1975 Spider in Denver Colorado.  For some reason I decided to respond to the ad. But really, what Fiat enthusiast would not respond to an ad for a running FIAT Spider with clean interior and a new top for $1000? After a few series of e-mails with the owners I decided that I wanted to see some pictures (Being form the show-me state I needed a little convincing that this was the real deal). I knew that if the car is everything they said it was, then it was going to be a steal at $1K.

Being a busy college student, I only have time to get away about every other weekend.   Melinda and I had always planned on taking the first weekend in February and take an early Valentine's trip somewhere, but we just didn't know where. However, when I got the roll of film from the owner of the FIAT and pictures developed, I knew that we were going to go to Denver Colorado. Yes, a 12-hour, one sixth of the way across America, trip to Denver to look at and test drive a Fiat Spider. Mel was excited, my friends thought we were crazy, and my parents didn't know.

That week I called the owners and told them we were coming and I made the reservations for the hotel. I figured that we couldn't just drive the car back across three states, so I went to the local rental shop and reserved a tow-dolly (for "In-Town" use of course). I didn't have a tow hitch on my truck, so I arranged a weekend swap with one of my fraternity brothers for his 1992 Ford Ranger XLT.  Hardly a truck to be towing a car, but it was all I could get.  That Thursday, I went to the bank and withdrew $1,500 of my student loan money and started packing.  Now my friends though I was really crazy.

"I doubt you will even make it there. You'll break down before you get through Kansas." Laughed one friend. "I don't know what to think. You said your Parents don't know?" said another friend. Those two were some of my sensible friends, while my crazy friends were all in support of my trip. Even Mel was excited to go, even though I'm sure she thought I was a little crazy. Needless to say I am the adventurist type and I was really excited to go 12 hours across the country to look at this car.

Friday morning I went to my morning class. My one, more sensible, friend came around and wished me safe trip after class. Skipping my last two classes for Friday I went and got the trailer, packed up the rest of my stuff, picked up Mel and got my video camera (we had to tape this one for posterity sake). I noticed that the tow-dolly had a speed limit sign of only 45MPH on it fender, which I temporally covered with a little duck-tape. We later affectionately called trailer "Buck" for the way it swayed side to side at speeds over 75MPH.

The Drive

Excited and nervous, Mel, Buck and I began our journey across Missouri, Kansas, and on to the mountains of Colorado on our quest to look at a Fiat. Most of the way thought the rolling hills of Missouri I has the accelerator smashed to the floor board but we would barely get over the posted speed limit of 70MPH. We got a quarter of the way trough Kansas before we needed some gas and dinner. Thinking that Kansas had no real dangerous parts to it we exited off California Blvd. in Topeka. To our surprise we found ourselves in the gangsta-hood of Kansas (Being form St. Louis, I know a lot about dangerous neighborhoods). After eating the worst Whopper know to man, and avoiding the police arresting gangsters at the gas station we got back on to the road. With only a hundred miles to go in Kansas we had to get more Gas and I had to ditch the 500lbs of traction sand bags in the back of the truck to get us a little more speed. Once we hit the border city of Kanarado we were thankful to be out of Kansas.

The weather that weekend was gorgeous. It was at least sixty degrees the whole way there, with hardly any wind. Rather unusual weather for the first weekend of February. Once we got to the high elevations the weather stayed nice, without a cloud in the sky. We were excited because the forecast for the rest of the weekend had predicted it would get sunnier and warmer.

Once we hit Colorado it was easy driving even on to Denver and the foothills of the Rockies. We got into Denver at about midnight, approximately twelve hours and 750 miles since we had left. We pulled into our hotel, which was supposed to be nice, but again we found ourselves to be in a rather bad neighborhood. Needless to say we didn't have time to find another hotel so we decided that it would be all right for one night. I woke up early the next morning and hurrily drove around looking for the nearest Embassy Suites, we needed a little luxury after the place we had just stayed in.

The Test Drive

(or rather the Test Sit)

I called the owners and told them that we would be by sometime in the early afternoon. Mel and I ended up strolling about in downtown Denver, enjoying the sights and eating buffalo for lunch. After that we headed over to the owners place to see the car. Needles to say, I was quite impressed with the car even though it was quite dirty. The interior was clean and new as well as the top. The cloth seats, however, were a noticeable custom job, although they matched the rest of the interior. I was impressed that the dash and center council were not as cracked as usual. A given sign that the car was somewhat taken care of by it first owners.

I got under the car and looked at all the panels and fenders. All looked okay as far as rust with only two small holes near the back of floor board and some rust through on the upper front wheel wells. The paint job ad been a Midas quickly as I noticed a lot of factory yellow in all of the inner panels. Even so the paint did look good once you got past all of the dirt and grime. No noticeable body damage except for the front had been beaten up when the owners tried to tow it with straps. The result of that folly caused a rip in the fender steel. Most all the trim pieces had been missing as well. To be quite honest I wasn't real impressed, however, from what I saw, especailly, without yet driving the car was worth at least $800.

I talked with the owner about it history and he could only tell me limited knowledge since he only had it for a year, bought from a consignment lot. He has some bad news however, he couldn't get it started for me. Having tons of experience with old Fords that couldn't start, we decided to work together to try and get it started. We believed that it would be timing, so we pulled the belt cover cover off and began to work on the timing. We tried everything for three hours while we worked on getting it started. We actually got it to turn over and fire for about five minuets, but that seemed to be a fluke since we couldn't get it started again. We knew that it could be a number of things, but we couldn't at all check them at once. The owner thought it had something to do with the distributor. I on the hand definitely knew it was an electrical problem.

While we had worked on the timing, I got a close examination of the engine. The carburetor was shiny clean, showing that it had been rebuilt in the last two years. Hardly and oil leaks except for the seal around the oil pressure sending unit. Moreover, a brand new distributor connected to a nearly new coil. The electrical, however, was something to be desired, Most all wires near the engine were showing exposure and or were very brittle. The relays were original and also shows corroded contacts. Moreover, most wires under the dash had been split and then re-spliced into trier connections rather poorly. It was quite clear that this car would need an electrical overhaul. It was also quite clear that the root of our starting problem had to deal with the electrical.

After three hours with no success we decided to call it a day. I was disappointed because I wanted to take the car trough the foothills of the mountains and open it up for a real test drive. Unfortunately this was not going to happen. We decided that we had flooded the engine out enough and I would come back in the morning to try again. All that night I had thought of the possible problems of why the car could not start. At face value the car was a beauty, a real steal at $1000 - if it ran. At a mechanical level, I couldn't see spending that much for a car that I have no clue on how it runs, handles, or even stops. I decided to take a gamble.

The Offer

The next morning we tried again unsuccessfully for about an hour to get the car started. I knew it had to be electrical but neither I or the owner had equipment available to test. It seemed that there was no way to get the car started without taking it to a shop. With this in mind I decided to take a gamble and make an offer on the car. I said I couldn't take it for more than $600, which was my offer. The night before I though that I might offer $500 and haggle up. I changed my mind however, and decided that morning I would make the firm offer of $600, still a steal for the condition of the car.

I remember waiting for the owners to make the decision. I stood outside on the balcony and looked at the mountains and enjoyed the serenity of the day. I realized then that I didn't want to go overboard and get myself into to a financial bind with this car. I then looked down at the street at the Fiat. I also realized that I didn't want to lose this opportunity of a lifetime. I couldn't pass up the chance to get this quality of a car for $600 if I could one day get it to run. I had always dreamed of driving a Fiat Spider thought the mid-Missouri hills with the top down and my hair blowing in the wind, and for a small sacrifice, I could somehow make this dream a reality. Alas, after about ten minuets to discuss and a little hesitation the owners decided that $600 would be fine. I about busted with excitement.

I pulled my friends truck around to the front of my new Fiat with the trailer firmly hitched. We pushed the car (thank god it was facing downhill) so it rolled up onto the tow dolly and strapped it firmly in place. We went inside to fill out the paperwork and get title and all of the other information needed for the bill of sale. With the exchange of $600 dollars cash and the title the Fiat was mine. I remember proudly towing it through Denver trying to think of a name. All of my cars had names; my Isuzu is Jerry Rice Burner, my Cavalier was Farrah (for my favorite Charlie's Angel), but for the life of me, and especially with all of my Latin Classes, I couldn't think of a good "Roman" name that represented my new 1975 Fiat 124 Spider.

The Drive Home

I pulled into the Embassy Suites parking lot looking a bit hoosierish in my truck pulling a car and  grease all over me. I ran up to the room, cleaned-up, changed clothes, Mel and I packed up our stuff, checked out of the hotel and hit the road. We were both excited and were still in disbelief that I got this Fiat. We thought if our friends thought we were crazy before we left they should look at us now. Having video camera in hand Mel filmed our fading departure form Denver and the mountains.

The four cylinder Ford Ranger had little to no problems pulling the Fiat. The first few hours of the trip seemed sluggish because there really is not anything in Colorado east of Denver. We stopped at a neat truck stop called Rip's about an hour east of Denver.  I would reccomend stopping there, it was very interesting. Once we hit Kansas by 2p.m. we knew that it would be about 1 A.M. before we even rolled into home, so we prepared ourselves for the long journey home. We spent most of the time admiring the Fiat on the trailer. To show you how bored we were a tumble weed got stuck on the front of the truck and Mel and I began to cheer it on (Wow, that's bored!)

The trailer, which was only rated at 45 MPH was doing fine pulling the Fiat at speeds well over 70MPH. Although down hills or passing semi's became treacherous when the trailer and the Fiat began to sway wildly from side to side. After we got home we found out that it was because the right rear tire of the Fiat had slowly deflated on our journey.

We rolled into town about 1 A.M., exhausted form our trip. My plan was to get up about an hour before class and take the Fiat over to the shop and then take the rental trailer back and then rush off to class. When I took the Fiat to the shop I told them what possibly could be wrong and to also double check the timing. They told me it would be about a week before they could even look at it. It was ready the very next day.

What was wrong

It turns out that I was right, it was the electrical system. Although it was noticeably in bad condition, the only problem keeping it from starting was a corroded electrical relay. In fact all seven of the relays under the hood were in poor condition and needed to be replaced. This probably would explain why things like the wipers and headlights were more intermittent than they should be. They went a head and redid the timing and tested the rest of the cooling and emissions systems to see if the were other problems, but they all checked out okay. The relays were on order and old relays would have to suffice for now. Ray, my mechanic said, "If you can't get it to start just wiggle those relays around a she should kick over." Sure enough, that's what did it.

I sped out of the mechanic's lot with the top down and the petal to the metal (It was still unseasonably warm for February in Mid-Missouri). I was living my dream while I was twisting and turning through the rural Missouri highways, and it was a great feeling. I had gotten the car for a steal thanking I would be working on it for the rest of the winter and here I was driving it only a day after I bought it.

Still enough, I was finding things that needed to be fixed. The breaks needed to be worked on and a lot of electrical still needed to be fixed so that it could pass state inspection. Even so I was having a wonderful time. My friends were enjoying it and I did nothing that afternoon but drive them around and tell this awesome story.

It took me about a week to get the electrical jerry-rigged enough so that it could pass inspection. One of the previous owners had a lot of add-ons and when they were taken out they just left wires hanging in panels. This explained why my voltage regulator fuse kept blowing. So after a new set of fuses and then some and tinkering with the ignition switch I got pretty much every needed for inspection up-to-par. I needed new hoses for the front breaks and new pads. After that small costly endeavor the car passed inspection and I was able to title it at home in Missouri.

My total cost to get the car:

A perfectly good running FIAT 124 Spider with a little rust and good interior for $1200 is not a bad deal at all! Not only that, I have a great story to tell about my Quest!  Sorry for the gramatical errors.