131mirafiori forum

I realise that this question may stump some readers but in the spirit of Christmas and all that means in terms of time to waste I thought I'd pose the question....cos I can remember mine!? ;D

It was 1974 or 75 and I was walking home from Violin classes? ::) past the maternity hospital when I saw a car that I had not seen before. At the time Dad had a Fiat 124 Special T (his third and best 124) which was a bit of a wolf in sheeps clothing. I was a car spotter par excellance at that tender age and I knew that this was a car I had never seen before. It was in a queue of slow moving traffic coming towards me and I had lots of time to study it. For some reason I just knew it was a Fiat and even though it was brand spanking it sort of glowed compared with the cars around it. It was a S model and I remember congratulating myself for identifying a new car without seeing the badge first.

When I got to the back of the car I was taken aback. The trick for any car spotter is to use light shapes to identify cars and in the 70s most rear light clusters were square (124, Cortina Mk3, Opel Relord, etc), rectangular (mk 1 escort, Fiat 128, etc) or maybe circular (Mk 1 Cortina). The dog leg shape was a first in my experience and represented cutting edge design to me at that stage.

Well the rest is history - The spell has not yet been broken!? :D

And to finish off the story here is a picture of what appears to be the best 131S for sale at the moment - Under 60000kms and costing ?4400.

(http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l250/kev131/11111111196896895-30278-1139566429.jpg)

At my senility approaching age I have trouble remembering where I am now let alone remember where I was when I first saw a 131! But I remember buying my first 131 in 1978. It was a 1976 131 Special that looked very similar to the one in the photo above. The one above does look lovely but has the wrong wheels (or the wrong colour, photo is too small to tell) and the wrong rear view mirror (that's sad to spot that is it not?....   :-\ )

The blue S is obviously a later model as it has front head rests which neither of my 1976 cars has. (Nearly as sad to notice these as the mirror Theo ;D ;D)? You're right about the wheels Theo - later Supermirafiori type, locally painted. They look very much like the 13" wheels I had on my 1982 facelifted (Series 3) Super. 4,400 euros sounds pretty expensive to me, and with 60,000 kms. My orange S has only got 16k miles and looks every bit as good as this car, so how much is this worth??

The first 131 I saw was my Grandfather's, back in about 1978 when I was only 11. He had a 1600 S Estate automatic in silver, with black seats. Perhaps this is where I get my love of Panoramas ??? ::) ;D. The next 131 I was aware of, and the first 131 I ever drove, was my mate's Mum's 1600 S estate, (there seems to be a common thread occuring here!) again in silver, but this time a manual with a severely slipping clutch!!! Not a good example, but a hoot to poke around Surrey with about 10 of us in it!!

US specification cars always had head rests as they were a legal requirement. I am not claiming the blue car above is from the US because it wouldn't be quoted in Kms if it was but may be from a country where headrests were also a requirement?

Gosh this is strange because a 131 was the first Fiat I can recall. Maybe because it was odd looking to me at the time. I didn't know the difference between too many cars other than Jeeps and VW Type1s (Beetles).

I'm 36 years old so I'm going to say I was about 11 or 12 at the time which would have been around 1981. I think it was fairly new because it had "Brava" on the tail light so it had to have been at least a 1979 model. It was silver and a two door. I think best I can recall. About the same time Fiat pulled out of the American market.

I even rememeber where I was at. We just crossed the bridge into the next county and dad was passing the guy up!

I think we were in his '73 Opel 1900 wagon.
 

 

My father pulled up outside our house in a yellow 2 year old Fiat 131, 1300 4 door saloon when I was a young fella.
He had his father with him and when we all went for a spin, he uncharachteristically flattened it (pedal to the metal) on the road to Nenagh.
The car struggled to pass 80mph... I was quietly disgusted at its anemic performance.
He made up for it a few years later when he accidently overtook a Metro 6R4 on its way to its first stage (Molls Gap) of the Rally of the Lakes, in Killarney.
However by then he had progressed to driving a white 132 4 door 2 litre. (Is progressed the right word?).