A tale of two sports.Picture the scene. Ireland at the start of the 1980?s. This ushered in one of the bleakest decades in the Irish States history to date. A somewhat irresponsible budget in 1977 by the majority Fianna F?il government in power at the time included the abolition of car tax but borrowed heavily to fund the then current spending. This, combined with some global economic problems during the period, basically ruined the Irish economy for most of the 1980s causing high unemployment and mass emigration.
After joining the ERM in 1979, Ireland was also saddled for much of the 1980s with an overvalued currency which wasn't rectified until the 1986 devaluation. Much of the capital borrowed in the 1980s went towards propping up this overvalued currency.
This was also an era of political instability in Ireland with power alternating between the two biggest political parties - Fianna F?il and Fine Gael -and some governments not even lasting a year, and in one case, three elections in eighteen months.
The 80? also saw the first bus lane opened in Dublin?s Parliament Street, we drove the wrong way down the Dublin north quays
and Johnny Logan wins the Eurovision song contest.
What else was happening during the 80?s? Well in the US, it started with a bang as Mount St Helens blew it?s top, who shot JR was an (inter) national obsession and the Iran-Iraq war was about to ignite.
In 1981 the Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off along with the introduction of the IBM Personal computer.
The Sony Walkman however was still 3 years away..
..live-aid concert rang out in 1985 and the Berlin wall succumbed in 1989.
I was in my first job in Dublin at the start of 1980 working for an American company manufacturing electronic POS terminals. High tech stuff we?re talking here with 4-bit processors, multi-segment displays and dot-matrix printers. Oohhh errrr missus. In April 1980, I managed to purloin a demonstration Fiat 127 Sport from the Motor Centre Fiat Dealer in Clondalkin. Black with go-faster orange stripes.
What more could a body want. Well maybe a 131 Sport? After reading an article in a 1980 edition of Autocar magazine where a long term 131 Sport was put through its paces, I had a new target and aspired to owning a 131 Sport. Little brother would have to do for the time being.
I can?t quite remember what I paid for the 127 as my recollection of the transaction is fairly vague. My guess is probably somewhere around ?4750. And the annual insurance cost ?274.
Although the series II 127 was introduced in 1977, it was probably a wee bit long in the tooth by 1980. The driving position was really ape like and although it had a lovely little 14? steering wheel ? shaped like a Mexican bandits moustache ?
..it felt as if it was almost vertical in its orientation. At times, it felt like I was opening an escape hatch on a sinking U-boat ?
and was half expecting to find a Dragar escape apparatus as part of the standard tool kit.
And there?s more. The accelerator pedal was far too close to the wheel well, the quality of the gear change was rubbery (no not lovely, rubbery), the octagonal instruments were prone to reflections and they really did look cheap. And it weighed, by today?s standards, an anorexic 772Kgs.
Competitors at the time would have been the Alfasud 1300Ti (much more expensive), the Mini 1275GT, Peugeot 104ZS and the Renault 5TS.
However, out of that entire bunch, the 127 Sport had a charm all of its own. Plus a cracking little 1049cc Brazilian built engine. With the aid of larger twin choke webers over the standard 1050CL, it pushed out a healthy 70bhp at 6500rpm. It felt very eager if a little cammy, preferring more revs than usual to keep it on the boil. And the high back ?tombstone? seats were better than expected although I suspect it may have been claustrophobic in the back.
In September 1980, the petrol Tanker drivers (that is a T and not a W) went on strike and caused havoc for the best part of 6 months. Queues for petrol everywhere. Spent quite a number of mornings queuing in my dad?s Fiat 132 and balked at the ?15 it took to fill.
At the same I was starting computer studies and went to look at a Sharp MZ-80 computer that Christmas. All 8 bit processor, 32Kb of ram (that?s KB not Mb), a built-in non-standard keyboard and a primitive display. And all for ?600 plus VAT.
Crikey. Needless to say I knew where my priorities lay and kept the money in the back kick for another pending purchase.
The following March (1981), the tanker drivers gave up their protesting and with the somewhat difficult economic times of the period, I ended up on a three day week collecting ?24 p/w for the privilege.
In April, an ex-Fiat Ireland (if I remember rightly) silver Fiat 131 Sport showed up with 7600 miles on it.
156 YZI. Silver with black trim. Me had to have. I ended up taking my dad?s 1978 Fiat 132 and he took the 127 Sport until he decided what he wanted to do himself. Did a deal in George Dagg?s, a Fiat dealer in Rathmines where I handed over ?2800 worth of wedge with the 132 and I came away with the object of my desire. Way hey.
Eh, say what? And me on a 3 day week. What the hell, I was relatively young and stupid at the time. Car insurance then hiked itself up to ?329 with the PMPA.
Luck changed, or so I thought, when I landed a new job on June 14th and was dispatched over to the States for what was supposed to be 6 weeks. Ended up being 17 weeks over there and got back on October 12th1981. Sad thing was, I was away from my 131 after only two months. I certainly missed my 131 but my dad didn?t. He was having a ball. He had the car all over Ireland and the UK. Sure why would he want to get his own car when he went prowling round in my 131. At least someone was getting the pleasure out of it.
Then, on the morning of Oct 23 1981, just 11 days after getting back, burglars broke in to the house and took the keys for both the 131 and 127 sports. And it?s not hard to guess which car they legged it off in?
At 15:30 later that day, the police rang to say the car was down in the technical bureau on St Johns road and I had better go down. A friend of my dad?s who was in the crash repair business came along too. Just as well as he estimated the damage at ?5000. It was therefore past saving as it was now beyond economical repair. It looked like the only thing that wasn?t bent was the keys. I was saddened but also glad that it was written off because I certainly would not have been a happy chappie if the repair was borderline and I ended up with a car that was stitched back together again.
Seeing my baby in such a distressed state, it was very hard to believe that some of Dublin?s finest scum couldn?t even manage to get themselves killed in such an accident. Like an animal?s head mounted on a wall as a trophy, I ripped the Fiat laurel wreath grill badge off and kept it as my own trophy sitting proudly on the desk.
Sad, I know.
Two days later, the crims came back for a repeat performance by taking the 127 Sport.
A neighbour suggested we take a drive to scout around the area and see if we could spot the 127. I thought he was mad thinking we?d have a snowball?s chance in hell of finding it. During the reconnaissance I just about caught a glimpse of a black car with orange stripes through a pedestrian walkway in Brookfield about 2Km from where I lived.
Got out, walked in and there it was. I should have bought a lottery ticket. Cops told us that it took part in a robbery the previous evening. I should have grounded her. Taking part in household robberies. Tut Tut. Needless to say, locks were changed immediately.
After the shock of both cars being taken and waiting for the PMPA insurance company to cough up, I started to think about what I?d do about a replacement car and what I?d like next.
In November, I looked at a Golf GTi which was selling for ?5950 with 17000 miles on the clock, an unregistered XR3 for ?7700 and an un-registered Golf GTi for ?6850.
PMPA came back and offered ?4000 as a replacement value and a salvage value of ?1500. Say what!!! Where did the b?tards get that figure from as it was the best part of ?5750 when I purchased the car only 6 months earlier. Then, out of the blue, a guy from Cavan rang and asked if I?d sell him the wreck for ?1500. Rather than give in, I haggled and indicated that I wanted ?1750. The following day he rang back and agreed so there?s me thinking I?d claw back at least some of the losses due to the low insurance valuation.
However, I was bitch slapped by the PMPA as they took the ?1500 off their valuation and sent me a cheque for ?2555. It arrived on Dec 4th exactly 6 weeks after the claim. A rather expensive 3 months of actual 131 seat time from my perspective.
On Dec 16th, I looked at another XR3 for ?5800. Then on Dec 19th, I saw
227AZO - another ex Fiat Ireland 131 Sport in Rialto Motors. Silver with blue bumpers and he was looking for ?6100. Jumping in, it felt like coming home again. Second chance at a first love wasn?t going to go without a fight.
It certainly wasn?t as sporty as the GTi or the XR3, but it felt more substantial, more luxurious and just, well more. Great balance between comfort and handling, fantastic short shift gearbox, great brakes, great lighting and something that indicated that it could take miles of continental driving in its stride.
Now it still did have its foibles. It wasn?t particularly economical, engine wise it was noisy when pushed and had incredibly short and slow wipers which left large parts of the screen un-swept. However, it was marvellous, I was still in love and I just had to have second helpings. The short engagement with 156 YZI before she was stolen hadn?t been long enough to rinse the 131 from my system. The desire still needed to be filled even if it meant breaking the bank. Again.
Walked in on Dec 23 with ?5700 in cash, waved it under the dealer?s nose and drove home in it later that day as I wanted it before the Christmas break.
Eventually 227AZO was sold in 1983. Wonder if she?s still about somewhere in deepest Ireland?
And now on to the second decade of the 21st Century. Overspending, reckless Governmant policies, global economic meltdown, mass unemployment and emigration. A feeling of d?j? vu in Ireland maybe? Now where have I come across this before?
And I?m probably driving something as equally inappropriate now in these bleakest of times as I did when drooling over a Mirafiori Sport in bleakest 1981.
Some people just never learn.I tried to re-create the original photo of 156YZI above which was taken 31 years ago in the same spot with my current mode of transport.
Looking back at the specs of both the 131 and the M, it?s interesting to see how things have developed over what is maybe 4 to 5 generations of cars over that period. The Mirafiori sport had a 4 cylinder twin cam engine displacing 1995cc and producing 115 PS. It weighed about 1100kgs. To put that in to modern perspective, a current VW Polo 1.2 trendline weighs 1092Kgs.
The M3 has twice the cylinders (V8), twice the capacity (3999cc), weighs about 1690Kgs and produces over three and a half times the power at 420ps.
When I thought about that, I sometimes wondered what Fiat (or one of the divisions) may have been producing nowadays had they taken Abarth to its heart as a tuner and produced a line of sporting saloons similar to BMW with the M-Sport, Mercedes with AMG or Audi with S lines. Or beyond.
There was huge potential with all the marques under their stewardship at the time ? Fiat, Alfa, Lancia and Ferrari and using Abarth as the tuning arm of Fiat. They obviously hadn?t the foresight or cop on to realise what could have been achieved. What might I have been driving today had they not lost the plot? A Fiat-Abarth rear wheel drive sporting saloon with rally winning breeding, svelt Italian styling in a way that only the Italians can do, Ferrari beating V8 muscle and with a character greater than that of Sherlock Holmes.
If only we could wind back the clock.
The photo?s of 156 and 227 were originally on slides. I stumbled across the box containing them a few months back and used a slide scanner to convert them in to jpg?s. And that?s the first time I?ve seen them in what must be 25 years. I was chuffed to find them and that got me thinking about the history and histrionics of 30 years ago. And before you ask, I?m still only 25. .