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.
You are not wrong Dave, that's precisely what happened.
The car in this thread (called Dudley
) 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!
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!
) 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:
In fact I was interviewed on TV that day
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
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 for its restoration.
The photos below were taken on the morning of its final drive to Mark's.
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.
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). 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) 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!
Author
