131mirafiori forum

Lovely looking sport only needing slight restoration ;D and yes the chassis has snaped in half and a piller snapped away ,easily made into a convertable. alas theo's old sport is ready for the graveyard RIP :-[
jason
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2570/3784832410_9ce20dac2d_b.jpg)

This car should be shipped to Ireland for restoration. It must be saved ;D

Not possible in the UK as we are not able to weld and bodge everything up with fibrefill.

Well we knew the truth would come out as there is a few good men who are gifted with welders here in Ireland and I can guarantee who would never be able to tell where the repairs were ever done...

A convertable 131, sounds like the perfect solution for the barbeque summer we are enjoying ;D ;D ???

who owns this? wasnt there a lad on here looking for springs? why wernt they offered for sale?

Sid was there not a lad on in the UK selling some cut springs but I know for a fact it would never get near an NCT here with them but they came off an MOTed car....

It is about time someone in Ireland bought this and restored it to concours condition. I am sure Theo would sell it if the price was right ;D

hi Dave you could always come & cut it into 4 inch squares!! ha ha ha lol!

No it can not be cut up it must be restored.

if this was Theos old car how did it get so bad?

I might be wrong but I think he was planning to restore it but it was so rotten he found a better one to work on.

Its not that bad da fiat teashirt is still saveable

You are not wrong Dave, that's precisely what happened.

The car in this thread (called Dudley  ;D) was my pride and joy for many years. In fact it was my only car for many years. I bought it in 1983 when I started a new job. Part of my job was to be a computer field service engineer and I had the option of a company car or an interest-free loan to buy a car and claim car allowance. I didn't want to be driving in a Ford Cortina (which is what the company cars were at the time) so I opted for the loan and upgraded my Blue 131S for the Silver 131 Sport. Even back in 1983 it wasn't easy to find a 131 Sport so I was phoning all Fiat dealers asking them if they had one for sale. I really wanted a Gunmetal grey car with the black interior (didn't much care for the red interior then) but couldn't find one. The only gunmetal grey car I found had the red interior and half the guy's garden in the boot!  :o ::) Eventually I had a call from the man in charge of used car sales at Fiat Alperton who said that one of the mechanics at Fiat had a silver Sport for sale. I went to see the car and should have known then how badly these cars rust when I could see some rust on the car which wasn't even 4 years old yet. But the Fiat mechanic owner assured me "it's nothing, just surface rust"  ::)  and agreed to get his mates in the Fiat bodyshop to repair the "minor" rust and give the car a full respray.  The car looked absolutely stunning and better than brand new when I collected it a few weeks later having had a full professional respray in the Fiat Auto (UK)  bodyshop (albeit after-hours  ;) )

By 1988 the rust started coming back and I had some restoration work done on the car and another full respray but the work was to a very poor standard. But the car continued to be my only and everyday car for a few more years until it was retired in 1992. I say "retired" because even though I bought another car, there was no way I could sell my 131 Sport as I was too attached to it. So I put it in my parents' garage and there it stayed for a few years. In 1996 I bought the Lancia Gamma Coupe as the idea of having more than just one car to use started to appeal to me. But the Gamma soon died (loss of oil pressure) so in 1997 the Gamma went into the Garage and the 131 Sport came out. I decided to recommission the Sport so I bought a couple of used doors (one was already silver and the other I sprayed myself - not very well  :-[) had a couple of sills put on the car (over the old rusty ones!  :o ) and managed to get an MOT for it. So I  started using the 131 again as a weekend classic.

In 1998 I entered the London to Brighton Classic car run:

(http://www.fiatmotorclubgb.org/Gallery/images/Pictures/131.jpg)

In fact I was interviewed on TV that day  ;D I saw and heard the camera man turn to the lady programme presenter, point at me and say "go ask that guy why he thinks his car is a classic".   I can't remember exactly what I said but it was something along the lines of the car being rare and special as it was released by Fiat to celebrate and commemorate their racing and rallying victories. I never saw the interview on TV (shown as part of local news on ITV) but a lot of people did and for days they used to come up to me and say "I saw you on TV in that old Fiat of yours".

Then in 2000 came the fatal blow  :-[. I was taking part in the "Millennium Run" organised by the Fiat Motor Club (GB) and the offside front brake seized on. Struggling to carry on, I decided to stop in a pub for a break and to let the brake cool down. The wheel was getting so hot the paint begun to blister  :o Sometime later I tried the car and as it seemed fine, I decided to carry on only to find, at my great surprise when I got to the end of the car park, that I had NO brakes! I decided to reverse back into the pub car park and call the AA but in doing so (at fairly high speed!)  I hit a low concrete bollard which I never saw (honest!  ::))

That's when I decided the car would get its rear end repaired and a full (and proper this time) restoration. I collected lots of panels (new rear panel, new front wings, new front panel, used but good boot lid) new rear lights and a used but good bumper from Simon.  The rear lights and bumper were fitted to the car so it was legal to drive and after a period of about 18 months in Devon (that's another long story and I doubt any of you are still reading this so I'll skip that one) the car was driven to Mark's at Italian Race Services (http://www.italianraceservices.co.uk) for its restoration.

The photos below were taken on the morning of its final drive to Mark's.

(http://www.131mirafiori.com/photos/Theo/Dudley2.jpg)

(http://www.131mirafiori.com/photos/Theo/Dudley1.jpg)

In fact the  rear lights and rear bumper in that photo are now fitted to my current Sport.

Externally the car looked "OK" (except for the nasty dent at the back) and the interior was in exceptionally good condition.

(http://www.131mirafiori.com/photos/Theo/Dudley3.jpg)

(http://www.131mirafiori.com/photos/Theo/Dudley4.jpg)

The interior eventually ended up in Simon's car.

The car drove very well and I was very much looking forward to getting it fully restored and back on the road but alas it wasn't to be  :'(  While externally the car looked reasonable, it was badly rusted from the inside out and there was little strength left in the floor. Back in 2002 I didn't know about Yagmur and all the lovely panels that can be bought new so on Mark's advice I decided to give up on the restoration and buy another Sport instead (http://131mirafiori.com/smf/index.php?topic=1564.0 (http://131mirafiori.com/smf/index.php?topic=1564.0)). In fact to help me decide whether to proceed with the restoration or give up, I created a website with lots or rusty photos (www.thotos.com/dudley (http://www.thotos.com/dudley)) and everyone who looked at those photographs said "Give Up!" so I did  :'(

But the car has donated a lot of its parts. A lot of the trim on my current Sport came from there and the engine, windscreen, interior and a few other bits went into Simon's car. In fact just a couple of weeks ago I took out the dashboard which will also be going into my current Sport soon. It was while taking out the dashboard with Jason's help that the car gave way under our combined weight and snapped in the middle, I knew I should have started that died sooner!  :-[  ;D

That was a very readable story Theo - I could have continued reading for as long as you were prepared to write! I love old 131 Sport stories!  ;)

The rust on Dudley is shocking - I wonder what would have happened in an accident.  :o

I had heard snippets of this story before (such as the pub incident) but it's nice to hear the full end to end (although I suspect that if you had the car for so long that there are many more stories to tell). Maybe we should have a new forum section called "131 memories"! I feel it could be a big hit and could replace the louvre thread which I think is only still going to achieve some sort of record!  ;D

Again well written and very enjoyable Theo - Who's next to bare their soul with 131 reminiscences...? ;)

Well Theo you have just admitted to welding over rust & hiding for a mot the usual uk spec i see, didnt think that of you, whats the grey one really like underneath any horrors in there??

I didn't say I did that! I said "had a couple of sills put on the car". It was shoddy work done by someone else and I never knew that the old rusty sills were still underneath until the sills were cut off.  As to what the grey one is really like, it shouldn't concern you as nobody other than me will own it and I am happy with both its condition and the work which I've had done to it.

Theo dont let Sid read that post but not bringing up the mot thing again but what is of concern to me is that people will do a repair like that after being paid as heaven forbid it was in an accident that car probably has the same or less structural rigidity then a cut and shut..... people who do repairs like that are criminal and should be dealt with by the law.....

You are of course right. It was shoddy workmanship and I said so. It was actually done by the MOT station "sills will cost you 60 quid a side" he said and I paid the money and got the MOT certificate. I can also tell you it was a company called Barwoods in North London who went out of business years ago. But let's remember that was over 10 years ago back in 1997 when it was common practice to fit "oversills". I believe Ireland didn't even have the NCT test in 1997. Was it not introduced in 2000 as part of the EU Directive that makes car testing compulsory in all member states? I am sure there's still bad work going on now but I'd like to think it's not as widespread as it was back then.

Yeah we got the "Test" in 2000 but we got the strictest one of any member states but my point is if this work is going people should be aware the car will crumple in a crash and how many of us would bring the kids and all out on a classic car spin.... beware of cheap bodges

The pictures on your site brought a lot of memories alive Theo! :D
I remember I bought together with 2 friends a Racing back in 1989. It was by then also already rotten as a pear. We stripped the car and when the car was taken up it broke into half. Great that all the parts are saved, you also need parts to keep the good ones going ;D
And lucky us, we see at this great forum that there is still interest in these great square boxes ;)

i was so moved by that story i felt pain and tears in most words  a  book or film should be made  " 131 LOVE STORY" and adventures of cowboy garages