I'm picking up my Baby tonight...

[Kingme2]

I test drove three of the local Fiats that were for sale.
First one: 78 Red, body quite rough, drove great, newer 2.0 engine (from 1.,middle priced ($5700).
Second one: 78 Red again, 1.8L, Body OK-ish, drove poorly, great price ($3700)
Third one: 80 Gloss Black, near perfect body, drove perfect, nice rims... $7500.

Lol... guess which one I picked!?!?! ... now I'm $7500 poorer, and about to embark on my second Fiat (first was my first car ever, a '74 I bought in '89)...

[baltobernie]

Congratulations!

If you've got the cash up-front, you'll probably be ahead in the long run buying the better car. The other two examples sound like they'd take $2-4k to get to this level. Now you'll be driving instead of sanding

[Spidey23]

Wow....that's a great looking car!! Congratulations! Where did you buy it??

[rlux4]

Welcome to the forum. You got a great looking car there. Being an 80, it could be either, is your car carb'd or FI?
Ron

[pope]

I love it! Great looking car.
Shouldnt be to hard to get a cutting tourch in there to cut out the roll bar!

[rocky]

That is a beautiful car. Great choice. You will be far richer in the happiness category. My Alfa is much faster, more refined and handles much better, but my Spider is more fun to drive. Enjoy yours.

Greg
'77 Spider
'74 AR GTV

[mbouse]

I love it! Great looking car.
Shouldnt be to hard to get a cutting tourch in there to cut out the roll bar!

that roll bar looks like the one i just spent a couple of days adding to my '80, why would he want to remove it? Looks great just as it is.

and, yeah! is it a carbureted or fuel injected engine??

[Kingme2]

lol... funny, funny like a cutting torch is ever going to be near this baby!

The registration listed it as an '81, and his add didn't say (tho' he did verbally tell me it was an '81)... looks like a little investigation is in order.

Good news, even drips a bit o' oil, like a good Italian sports car should!!

Nights are cold, even got to test the heater (works fine!)

[mbouse]

that seems to be a common issue lately. what date?

look at the date of manufacture inside the driver door.

[Europa]

Kingme2, where are you located? I am curious because of the date format on the pictures you posted. dd.mm.yyyy.

[Kingme2]

Well, the manufacture date inside the door is 05/80, so as cars go, it would've sold as an '81, right, ?

Europa: I'm in Canada... Those are pics the fellow posted when he originally put it up for sale (hence the dates being so long ago)...

[launieg]

Kingme, gorgeous car! Calgary is my home town (almost 40 years) and my daughter and her family are there (and my wife's family too) so I'll have to meet up with you and take a look at that beauty next time I'm in town.

By the way, the date order (Day, Month, Year) is standard in our metric measure country (Canada). It is one of the wierd puzzles we have to deal with in trying to figure out dates, because half the time we don't know if we're looking at something dated in the USA or Canada. Often the only way to know for sure is if the day is after the 12th! However, we still WRITE it out "August 13, 2009. We are a country that gets influenced from all sides.

[love2longboard]

Hi! I'm new on-line today. I have been bidding and looking for about two months and I came across this site. It's a great source of info. I had a '74 Spider (Hunter green/tan) when I was 19 and I have missed it ever since selling it. I am looking at an '84 Black/tan this weekend and then will be looking at an '82 green(smoke grey according to Fiat)/tan on Monday. Both cars are one owner only and seem to be in good shape.
What year did Fiat start putting in the plastic inserts into the fenders/doors to help delay rusting?
Thanks,
Bruce

[kilrwail]

Kingme, great looking car, and welcome to the forum. You essentially paid the price it would have sold at when new. With a date of May 1980, it would have sold as a 1980 model - mine is dated May 1978 and is a 1978 model.

As for date formats, in Canada we're suppposed to have adopted the SI (Systeme Internationale) metric system, in which dates are written 2009-05-24. But few people use this, including camera manufacturers

[Kingme2]

Same price as new?!?!?! Not sure if I got a great deal or if I got ripped off!!

Lol, can I tell people it's new??