Late 70's. I had just got my drivers license.
A mile down the street, on a corner, for sale, sat a Fiat Dino Spider in orange. Asking price $4500.
Few weeks later, Dad bought me the Fiat.
But it was used, army green and a 128 sedan.
Few more years go by. The local Fiat dealership went out of business. My brother from out of town bought a brand new 1979 Fiat X 1/9 in blue for pennies on the dollar including a rebate from Fiat.
I got the "opportunity" to drive the brand new blue X 1/9 to the Fiat dealership in Baton Rouge the following Saturday morning with my Dad following me. The car needed a few things done to it before my brother was to pick it up.
Once in the repair bay, my Dad says "What do you think about that (pointing) X 1/9 in red?" I say oh man, that's the ticket. Walked over to look at it and the entire dash was removed. Wiring and stuff everywhere. But oh man, what I'd give to have a RED X 1/9!
Dad says "you like that one?"
I say "Oh man yeah!"
Dad says "That's YOUR car."
He bought it from the same out of business dealership that my brother bought the blue one from, someone tried to hot wire the ignition and tore the dash up in doing so, and Dad had it shipped to Baton Rouge for repair.
I must have waited 3 or 4 months for the Baton Rouge dealership to put MY car back together before going to pick it up. Talk about a LONG wait!
The 128 Sedan survived me through high school and 2 successive nephews for the next 15 or 20 years.
So that's a story about the one that got away, and the one that didn't!