[rammstein]

Originally Posted by SCadaddle

I had a 1979 X 1/9 as my second car in 1980. My first car was a 1975 Fiat 128 2 door sedan. The 128 survived myself, 2 nephews and somebody else in the end. My older brother bought a brand new 1979 X 1/9 from a defunct Fiat dealership in Jackson MS to upgrade from his 1976 X 1/9. I was 16 at the time and had the job of delivering it to the dealership in Baton Rouge early on a Saturday morning, with my Dad following me. I was pretty bummed. It was a really nice car in Blue. Got to the dealership and looked around inside. Man oh man.....there's one in RED! The dash was completely apart and laying in the seat. My Dad asked me "what do you think about that red car?" I said "looks GREAT to me!" He said "Good. Because that one is yours." DO WHAT?! Yep, Dad scored the red X 1/9 from the same defunct dealership the day before and had it towed to Baton Rouge. Somebody had tried to hot wire it when it was at the dealer in Jackson. It was a "fixer upper". I think I waited a month to go back and pick up my new RED X 1/9. Might as well have been an eternity! I think the blue car was bought for about $4500 and the red car for about $3500, and each came with a $750 rebate check from Fiat a month or so later.

I drove my X 1/9 through high school and college. The only issue I ever had was a bad head gasket, a water pump and multiple rear wheel bearings. It was as fun and balanced as a car could ever be. I auto-crossed with it regularly. At 6'-4" and 250# it fit me like a Gucci loafer. My jeans all had a wear spot on the inside right thigh from the steering wheel. The early 80's were the "Magnum P.I." years and hard top off sporting my Detroit Tigers baseball cap I always got honks and waves driving that little red X 1/9 around. When my college town got hit with an ice storm (rare here in The South!) I was one of very few that could get to the liquor store after putting several sand bags in the front trunk!

One really fond memory was when I scored a vintage wind up 8mm movie camera at a second had store for like $5. Loaded it with a roll of film and drove up the Natchez Trace Parkway from Jackson to Starkville on a sunny day. I put the camera on the dash and with the trigger I would take a single frame about every 4 seconds with nobody ahead of me, then increased the frames as I came up behind someone. Once I passed them I would slow down the frame speed once again. I did this for the entire 2 1/2 hour trip. The resulting movie looked like I was doing 300 mph, slowing down to 50 mph then hitting the turbo back to 300 mph once I started to pass. I used that movie in a "Public Speaking" class with an instructor that was a dead ringer for Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders. Of course I had the popular Pretenders tune of the day "Middle of the Road" to go with my movie. I got a D!

I loved my X 1/9, IF I could find a really nice one I'd do it all again at the drop of a hat. No, it wasn't fast but it was FUN! My brother's X 1/9 was "immediate family" Fiat #13, mine was #14, I later bought a 124 spider as #15 and in the last 5 years my brother bought, drove and traded 3 of the new Fiat 500's. That makes 18. We had them all: original 500's, 600's, 1100, 850 spiders, 128, a 124 spider, 3 X 1/9's and the new 500's.

You should get that converted and onto youtube with a cool music score. I'd watch it.