This whole thing to me is interesting. I have won five 1st place awards at the Fiat Freak Outs over the years and a few years back decided that it would be more fun driving my X than showing it. I then did what I could to NOT enter the show (for judging). I would rather drive my car to the event, park it on the field and then drive it on the organized drive later on. I do not see the fun in trailering a car to a show and worrying about if that painted bolt will cause you to loose points or not. Some people enjoy that, I do not. My greatest goal would be to wear out my X1/9 twice. Isn't driving these cars what it is all about?
For the record, Paul's X1/9 is by far the nicest original example I have seen. That car sets the standard of what an original style X1/9 should look like. Beautiful!
Wow, thanks Brett! I'm honored that you think so!
As far as the show thing; it's not that I enjoy competing for a trophy or anything. I like showing it and talking about it because a) it's an interesting car and b) I put a lot of work into it :hammer: c) you meet other X1/9 owners.
I grew up here around Detroit and everything is cars, cars, cars! American cars usually. And, yes I do like the "correct markings on the fasteners", numbers matching, stuff which you will find dominates most American-marque, judged shows. It's history. It's interesting. It reflects how the cars were built, designed and manufacturing techniques of the time, etc.
There are no judged Fiat shows that I have ever been to (as you know, people's choice is different than judging) so I sort of took it upon myself to write my own, "early X1/9 originality guide" just for me, and I enjoyed it immensely! I'd look at the press-release pictures, old magazine articles, scratchy micro-fiche, dealer accessories that were available, etc. and form some sort of idea what was original and what wasn't. My car was a one owner car and was fairly original when I got it so that had some input as well.
Is what I came-up with correct? Heck, I don't know. A guy like Chris Obert would be a guy that really knew what they were like as he's worked on them from the day they showed-up in this country right up until today. So if I find a factory picture of a car with chrome license plate lights, Chirs would probably have first hand experience as to whether or not they really came here that way.
Personally, I liked the look of them with the trim on the back of the car and I have some level of documentation saying they are correct so I put chrome lights on my car. That's sort of how I did the whole thing. I didn't like the stock, plastic interior door handles but I found a press photo showing 124 coupe-like, chrome metal door handles, so I used those instead. I think Ulix also confirmed that these were used up to some point.
If there is interest in this sort of thing I can post some of my findings for early cars.
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