1978 Fiat X1/9, 1.5 carb for sale

Hey ladies, I don’t need this X, I want to focus on sorting out my turbo-X and this car is just taking up room.

To be honest this car is really just a “parts car” because it’s not worth spending the money it would take to make it a “good” car in it’s own right. Don’t get me wrong, it could probably go for 20-100k more without an issue, but chances are there will continually be minor things that need to be taken care of. I personally no longer have the patience for this, and couldn’t be bothered fixing everything at once because the cost to do it properly would exceed the final value of the car.

Including purchase price it owes me just over $5k in the last 12 months, and I’ve done maybe 1,500km in it – in which time it hasn’t missed a beat. The engine is sweet, revs freely and sounds great, but really needs a decent carby and exhaust to give it real poke. The interior is pretty nice for such an old car, very good seats, sports wheel that feels great, and sweet stereo.

It also has a Rattler alarm system, I’ve only used it a half-dozen times but it worked fine, I just didn’t get the point of a full-on alarm system on a car like this. The body is fairly straight, and it looks fantastic from a distance. Here’s a couple pics I took yesterday:

And here’s a brief vid I took as well – I was just testing some settings on the camera so it doesn’t really show anything, but meh:

That’s about where the good stuff ends. :/

I’ve spent about $1500-2000 on various random things about 1,000km ago to get it to how it is… service/tune-up, new wheel bearing, bushes, lower control arms, tie-rod ends, steering rack refurb, wheel alignment, minor random stuff.

The engine is a 1.5 with carby (I think from a Regata 85S?) which was reconditioned about 20-25k ago. The PO spent something like $5k+ over the last 3 or 4 years and did heaps of other stuff to it that I don’t know of, but personally I’m not willing to spend any more money on it as I already have another fantastic quality X which deserves my time and money. It’s a fun car for the 2km commute I have between home and the office, great for darting through traffic on city streets, but I took it on a run through the hills this morning and couldn’t enjoy it as much as I should because I was too worried about all the little issues it has – hence I’ve decided to get rid of it today.

The car rattles and creaks and generally just *feels* old. One of the engine mounts is fatigued or broken – on a hard-left bumpy corner under throttle the sump can bottom out. With the roof off the windows rattle. The doors don’t have that satisfying *clunk* when you close them. The pax door-lock is toast. The glove box doesn’t open – I have no idea what’s in there. I’m not sure if the heater controls are attached or work – I haven’t done enough trips over 15km to bother using them. The front boot latch decided to not lock last week – it’s probably just a loose cable under the dash but I haven’t bothered to look. There is some corrosion in the front boot and around the strut tower. I think the left-rear wheel has a hairline crack in it. The handbrake doesn’t work. Some of the panel gaps are a bit wonky. There’s a slight dent in the driver’s door. The suspension is shocking ( :p ) – going over a manhole cover or railway line will rattle your fillings loose. The fuel gauge doesn’t work. The synchromesh in 1st and 3rd is stuffed, you need to hold the clutch in for 2-3 seconds before even thinking of putting it in 1st. The clutch pedal squeeks. The brake pedal doesn’t return all the way back up until you return the clutch up too. The seat adjustment mechanism is difficult to use. The horn is too quiet. The seatbelts need to be replaced as the inertia reels are too touchy. The rear-view mirror needs adjusting every 25 seconds. The steering wheel shakes at 105 kph.

There’s probably several other minor things, but that about covers it. 🙂

I personally would rather rip it to bits and keep all the good stuff, but I live in the city and don’t have space or workshop facilities so need to get rid of the whole thing. 🙁

$4k or best offer.

Car is located in Adelaide, and has current rego.