1977 Fiat 124 Spyder
The head of Amtrak’s test department had just bought this 1977 Fiat 124 Spyder from one of our coworkers and wanted to spice up the performance a bit. The 1756 cc double overhead cam four was a rev-happy and sturdy little unit but lacked for low and mid-range torque. We both knew what had to happen: The Fiat had to go under the wrench.
If you listen carefully, you can hear my wife’s 1974 Datsun B210 quietly rusting in the background. All photos taken in April 1978.
New ANSA exhaust peeking out
We did what just about anyone at that time did, put on a set of headers and a new free-flow exhaust system. Took us about half a day in my driveway, and by late afternoon it was ready for a test drive.
It sounded sweet and responded with more eagerness than before the surgery.
New header in evidence
I look in horror at the diameter of the header runners today and wonder why the engine had any low end torque at all. The header looks more appropriate for a small block V8, not a revvy little 1800.
We probably could have gotten the same perception of increased engine response had we simply re-curved the distributor and set the static timing more aggressively, a trick that I later applied quite effectively on my Rabbit. Live and learn.
This may not look like hot rodding, but it was. You make changes to your ride that most other mechanics won’t even touch, and you learn to tune your hooptie. Key word is “tune”. Mods rarely work to their potential strait out of the box.
But today it’s pretty hard to do any tuning in the classical sense. The ECU, or whatever it’s called, pretty much calls those shots. And then there’s emission testing…
After the test drive
Oh, and yes, we always worked on our cars wearing blue oxford cloth button-down shirts.
After a couple of years this owner sold the car to another one of our coworkers who was able to do something that none of us had been able to achieve up to that point-he got a ticket for laying rubber in a mall parking lot in a fit of pique.
I know that many of you don’t have very high opinions of Fiats, but I recall the 124s as being silky-nice sensory feedback with nice quality interior materials. Notice under the hood-no A/C, no PS, no PB. Didn’t need that stuff. Fun to work on, and we did.
Beautiful photos of a cracking little car and an interesting piece too… but why did you have to put that blasted inaccurate cliche in the title?!
That was bothering me too….fixed it for you!
Thanks Paul! Much better now 🙂
Splat,
The original title was used for the very reason that it was a cliche. Those of us who have owned and worked on Fiats have a very high opinion of their design and quality. My first new car was a 1972 Fiat 128. Due to execrable dealer service I learned how to change my disc brake pads (it was the first car I had owned with disc brakes); adjust the clutch; and replace the distributor condenser-no big deal once you got over the anxiety of yanking the distributor out of the engine and then re-installing it. Unlike my VW Rabbit, none of the body hardware, lights, etc, were attached using sheet metal screws-only machine screws backed up by weld nuts. Most of the fasteners in the engine compartment were nylocs, and damn near every one of them was 10 mm. The 128 engine could be a pain in the ass to work on (like changing an alternator drive belt without a lift) but the 124s were thoroughly conventional and required no special skills. The Bosch ignition components on my Rabbit required far more attention than the Marellis in my 128.
Thanks for the clarification Kevin. It’s clear from the article that you didn’t buy into the cliche but there was no sense of irony in its use which puzzled me. It marred an otherwise lovely piece and I’m glad Paul felt moved to fix it.
As a serial FIAT owner myself (from a family of serial FIAT owners) I wholeheartedly agree that owning one will (generally) dispell the myth that they’re unreliable and/or poorly built.
Inevitably European experience of dealer service for a European marque is different, though that said only one of my FIATs (also my first ever new car: a 2001 Bravo 1.9 JTD) was regularly dealer serviced. My first car (a 1989 Panda 1000 CL) powered by the later FIRE series engine was still simple enough to do much of the maintenance and upkeep on myself, and my beloved ’98 Coupe 20VT (my avatar car) got looked after by small independents.
All my – and my family’s – FIATS have run well, and (with the notable exeption of my Coupe – which in fairness is a semi-exotic turbo charged thoroughbred and can be expected to have moods) all have been solid, reliable and enjoyable cars.
I’m glad your experience of my favourite marque was equally good and that that’s now better reflected in your fascinating article’s title.
for clarification the Coupe was a solid car that traded some of its reliability for monumental doses of enjoyment… when it wasn’t pouring its own engine oil through its turbo charger… but that’s another story
Love, love, love the 124 Spyder. Mainly because it was the car I learned to autocross in. A woman I was dating was active in the local (Erie, PA) SCCA chapter, and was a pretty good platonic friend of mine at the time. That changed under her idea of, “will teach autocross in exchange for sex.”
I was an incredibly slow learner, needing many remedial sessions.
As R.L. Burnside would say: “Well well well….”
My driving instructor was an elderly man, a retired bus driver.
So I guess the missing link here is “autocross”.
I had two of these – a ’69 and a ’79. I learned to work on cars with these and literally changed my first spark plug with the ’69. The engines were relatively bullet proof and the sweet DOHC was fairly rare in its time. Rust aside, I’d say the only real negative relative to its peers was the worm and roller steering which never felt very responsive. Nonetheless they were great cars to fling through the twisties.
I remember when Fiat was around the first time, and yeah, as long as you knew what you were doing, these older Fiats were pretty decent.
The sad fact of the matter was, most dealer mechanics, and most of the general public didn’t, and so many times they never ran right, or at all reliably.
I have always had a soft spot for the company and would love to own a current one, the larger 500L, should I ever have to replace my ’03 Mazda Protege5.
There, I’d get a go pedal to stiffen up the toe in upon a standing start for a more firm acceleration (and having a 5spd would help, I’m sure, even though the autobox is a Dual Dry Clutch unit).
I’d also stiffen up the suspension just a tad, and maybe drop it down just a scosche so it will do mountain twisties just a bit better, but leave it totally stock otherwise. 🙂
As to that 124 Spider, nice. These were always great looking, in just about any color too.
Nice car and article once again,thanks Kevin
How coincidental. As I commented on the earlier Fiat post, THIS way my mom’s first car. She had a bright orange one. Great article!
Just beautiful. It looks just like the 1980 Fiat 2000 Spider a good friend owned. I really miss affordable cars that are both good to look at and a kick to drive.
I love that first photo. So perfectly period!
I haven’t owned a Spider yet but casually on the look for one. They still offer amazing value especially compared to the British roadsters. One day …
Great pictures, fun story. This is why I visit this site.
Kevin, I sent you an email about Al-Andalus a while back and a sending address.
P.S. I have received parental permission.
On a Ford lot in the early Eighties it took three salesmen to put the top down on a Mustang convertible and stow it neatly in the boot, two to do the work and get sweaty and practice swearing and a third to distract the prospect so they won’t see what a pain in the ass it was. This was much harder than the umbrella assembly kit that was typical of English roadsters. When a 1977 Fiat 124 Spider came as a trade-in, the one-hand operation of the top was a revelation and I bought it.
Despite the bad reputation this brand has, mine was remarkably reliable, fun, and fast. The Pininfarina coachwork was flex free, there were no rattles, and I could cruise at 80 with the top down, all needles straight up, and smell the crops in the fields on my way to work early in the morning. The leather jacket that I bought a few years earlier to serve as a heater for my TR3 was still useful but the Fiat’s built in heater dumped some warmth on my feet and it was quite cozy in the cockpit.
I owned this model’s predecessor, the 1500 Cabriolet. Its top was a mechanical wonder, too — one of the reasons I chose the Fiat over the Spitfire at the same used car lot. The other reason? Five forward gears! I could raise the Fiat’s top at a stoplight without leaving the car; just reach back and swig it forward, latch at the corners and you were snug and dry as you could be beneath any single-layer uninsulated vinyl top.
My issue with Fiats isn’t how they drive, it’s how they rust.
As far as tuning modern cars with ECUs, you just use a laptop instead of a screwdriver, but yes, you do have to get through emissiions testing in many places.
YMMV. How many FIATs have you owned?
Out of 12 FIAT’s in my personal experience of owning (either my own cars or cars of the family) rust was an issue on exactly one: the only Mk1 (pre-87 refit, ungalvanized) Panda we owned. In fairness, Dad bought it new, it was white and over the course of two years we watched it disolve like a boxy asprin on wheels. But it was the execption, not the rule.
For your consideration, examine the absence of rust on this ’89 (post-87 refit, fully galvanized) Panda 4×4 I photographed in Orkney (a wintery salt-strewn archipelago off the northern coast of Scotland) last summer.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65918877@N00/7658800938/
23 years in a harsh maritime environment and still solid.
Not all FIATs rust.
Imagine if Marchionne and Co. decided to build and sell a retro version of the 124 Spider today. That would be one sweet ride.
Hell, even a retro X1/9 would be okay (and probably a lot cheaper to build, what with the mid-engine layout). It’s not like it would be real tough to take the 500’s drivertrain and stick it behind the seats.
I was thinking about a neo-retro wedge X/19 the other day, with the Abarth 500 engine, hmmmm?
persistent rumours of an abarth coupe:
http://www.themotorreport.com.au/16535/fiat-abarth-coupe-in-the-works
and promising coupe replacement design studies:
http://www.autoevolution.com/news/british-designer-envisions-new-fiat-coupe-35895.html
keep coming to nothing sadly. It seems FIAT’s determined to keep sporty niche to Alfa, which is a dreadful shame as I agree, a reborn 124 Spider, Dino, X1/9, and/or Coupe would all be wonderful things to find on modern FIAT forcourts… here’s hoping
Fiats respond to tuning very well, The 125 sedan was factory souped up here to produce a T model for stock production racing it could catch a Vauxhall Victor 3.3 on wet tracks not in the dry great little cars and a lot of fun until the rust sets in.
Those Fiat 4 bangers sure like to rev, don’t they ?
My brother’s first car was a 1978 Fiat 127 with a 1,050 cc engine.
He bought it in 1985, the body and floorpan were in an amazingly good condition.
He always drove it like he stole it, maintenance all DIY. Never had any trouble, until he parked it on top of a tree truck that was laid down alongside a slippery road.
Here’s a funny Fiat TV-commercial from the eighties, everybody here who’s old enough remembers it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgFIv__S1s
Not sure about the blue car in the commercial, is that a Chevrolet ?
Furthermore a Lincoln and an International truck ?
Great car and a great story. I really do miss the days when shade tree mechanics dared to dress appropriately.
I saw a very nice 1981 or so Fiat Spider 2000 when I was up in Bellingham last weekend, and I got some good pictures of it. When I get home from work tonight, I’ll have to post the pics to the Cohort and/or put together a Roadtrip Classic. Today may have just turned into Fiat Day.
Check the Cohort for more pics.
I lost all respect for this story when I saw the B-210 in the background. My wife brought the same colored monstrosity into our marriage as part of her dowery. I had rather have had three goats or four lambs. Those at least would have been in good taste. Or tasted good.
I feel your pain.
Ha! That’s my B-210! Are you sure you & your wife weren’t its first owners? I was somewhere between the 3rd & the 30th. 🙂
Sure, the coachwork was biodegradeable, but that little ’74 A-13 ran flawlessly — after I re-ringed it and had the head rebuilt.
Funnier thing is, the friend I bought the Datsun from had a red 124 Spyder. I think his was a ’72, though. He might’ve even used the $400 I paid him for the B-210 to buy the Spyder. Unfortunately, we were both still in in a “procession of neverending heaps” phase, so the 124 was pretty used up when he got it.
Still, he was able to hoon the living daylights out of that Fiat until some high $$ problem (for him) sidelined it. It was NOT, however, the stereotypical electrical or ignition or rust issues. I remember it being something like the clutch. Possibly a combination of problems. After all, the top was going bad and winter was coming on.
Not too long after, he bought a 4-door Fiat, a light blue 131 Brava and that one was pretty good, too (for a heap.) Don’t remember it’s fate, though.
Only car I’ve ever bought twice. When I was about 20 I picked up a ’72 1600cc one spring, drove it through the summer, and then sold it as planned. And then regretted selling it for several years… until I found a ’79 2000cc. That one I drove for eight or nine years (my second-longest automotive relationship). I even drove it as a parade car in the Coney Island Mermaid Parade one year. That was before I rearended a yellowcab at a stoplight in Manhattan one rainy night, and totaled it.
The Spyder 2000 was much the better car; not just the extra displacement (which mostly just countered the increasing smog stuff), but also better (lighter-colored) wood on the dash and console (the cabins on these were beautiful little models of Italian artistry, with top-quality materials and exotic design befitting a much more expensive vehicle), and the restyled taillights that blended with the shape of the rear better than the rectangles of today’s subject car. (See Fig. 1)
Reliability? Well, I’ve had better — but I’ve definitely had worse, too. It left me stranded on a couple of memorable occasions. Having my transmission bell housing gasket (or something serious down there anyhow, I forget what exactly) self-detonate at 70 mph is a sound I won’t soon forget. But overall, my Spyders really didn’t warrant the “Fix It Again Tony” insult.
I did get to know one mechanic pretty well, though. His name is Mitchell Zelman, he has a garage in Brooklyn, and his repairing my Spyder 2000 in the ’90s resulted in a friendship that’s lasted almost two decades. I recommend him heartily to any Fiat owner in the NYC area. Or anywhere in the Northeast, for that matter. Here’s an article the NY Times did on him in 2011. The silver ’84 Pininfarina on the hoist is Mitchell’s own daily driver:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/mitchells-auto-repair/?_r=0
Pretty cool spider you had, red with Cromodoras, no less !
A friend’s sister bought a ’77 or ’78 124, not sure of the year after all this time, and she brought it to where I worked for a smog test. It was about a year old at the time, with about 10,000 miles on it. I had only seen one car that read dirtier on the machine than the Fiat, and that was a hugely cammed Dart with a 440 in it after the plugs had loaded up from idling too long. A trip around the block in 1st gear and the Dart passed, barely, but if it sat a while, forget it. I got a world of shit from the Nevada DMV over passing that Dart, but at the end, they let it go through and get plates. No matter what I tried, the 124 wasn’t going to pass, so I sent her to the Fiat dealer, Fletcher Jones, and they just wrote her an inspection ticket and she got her plates. Just for grins, I had her come back after she got the plates and put the sniffer on it, and it was just as bad as it was before. Big shock there, we already knew that the dealers just wrote up inspections without actually testing anything. I was too big to be comfortable in the Fiat, but the Dart was a load of fun. It was scary fast. I saw it run a high 11 on bigger than stock street tires a couple weeks after I tested it.
Neat car and story. It’s funny I remember these as having pretty good low end grunt. When I drove one for the first time I was also amazed at how solid the structure felt.
The 124 wore its big bumpers well and overall I preferred it to the Alfa Spider. I had a fixation with the early big bumpered models after they went to the flush, pull-up door handles. I think those were fuel injected.
Nice Spider, I especially like those four-spoke alloys.
I saw a nice earlier model at the Coralville cruise night last June. Looks to be about a ’68 or ’69:
Awesome write-up and pictures! I wish FIAT offered something as exciting in their showrooms today.
I’ve got the same car! Love it. They do have PB’s by the way. Actually quite advanced mechanically for the time. The headers are nice but why stop there? Lots more can be done to improve performance.