In 1980, Fiat shoppers had the choice of two affordable sports cars: the 124 Sport Spider (examples of which remain quite common in wrecking yards, and the X1/9. The mid-engined X1/9 featured 128 running gear and was a lot more fun to drive than its 66-horsepower (for US-market models in 1980) engine would suggest. (Read More…)
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Tag: Fiat X1/9

We’ve seen a fair number of outstanding engine swaps in 24 Hours of LeMons racing— the Saab B Turbo-powered 300ZX comes to mind— but most such projects tend to have reliability and/or performance issues in the car-slaughtering arena that is LeMons. At the frozen Campaign To Prevent Gingervitis race a couple weeks back, the much-anticipated radial-engined MR2 ate its drivetrain after a single lap, but there was one outlandishly butchered machine that actually contended for the overall win: the Alfa Romeo quad-cam V6-powered Bertone X1/9 of Team Launcha Splatos. (Read More…)
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VA Terrapin - OneAlpha and Summicron, I thought most of us are here to read about cars, not have racial insults thrust upon us, especially in articles...
RobertRyan - No it was fairly lightweight unit and it had no handling issues. Drag yes, but not handling issues.
DeadWeight - My 8 has been tied as the most reliable car I’ve ever owned, and I drive it year round, in summer and in snow. The failure...
Summicron - “Only in America.” Well… yeah. Where else was private aircraft manufacturing ever big enough to be a target?
MRF 95 T-Bird - Agreed. Here in NYC the Parks dept has been using a vehicle similar to these from Smith electric. Far more...
Robert Gordon - Discovery I and II use the LT230 transfer box (LT stands for Leyland Transmissions – a comforting thought)...
sunridge place - My take…they used to over-report production in North America with production #’s by plant and model....
sunridge place - 28 Yep…happens here in the US often. Ever looked at Nissan’s sales in the US? http://www.goodcarbadcar.ne...
wmba - “Particularly poor example” ,”Industry doing fine to this day”? Not like it was. Read Plane and Pilot 1970 to 1975 to see the amazing...
NMGOM - Yes. If I chose to have a Bugatti Veyron that gets 8 mpg, but only drive it 50 miles twice a month, why should I get taxed...