1972 124 B-Coupe, one of the best (pics)

[Fiat500USA]

I miss my 131

Yeah, that's another good one!

[redred]

Is your dad going to come to the Palomar GTG on Sunday? It would be awesome to see this car in person!!!!

[shagghie]

Is your dad going to come to the Palomar GTG on Sunday? It would be awesome to see this car in person!!!!

He lives in Houston now so won't make it, but I have a feeling the car(s) will make it back here to So Cal some time not too far in the future... Tsk tsk tsk.

[Mini Cord]

Beautiful car Shaggie!

I also have a 124 Sport Coupe in yellow.



Made by IXO for Altaya, 1/43

[shagghie]

More pics of my Dad's rides:

[shagghie]

To answer your question on the exhaust: The header is the Allison ‘snakes” custom header. The down pipe is a custom 3” 4-2-1 design, connected toa 3” mid pipe that runs back to a 3” Monza hi-flow resonator. The tips are 3” ABARTH baffled tips

Shagghie - Thanks for the post! Because I wasn't sure my question from the wheels thread would even be seen, I was going to PM you, but you beat me to it.

The 124 is simply BEEE-YOU-TEE-FULLL!! I wish I was old enough to drive during those years! All I could do was look and drool! The models from that era were timeless and oh so Italian! Hey, we're lucky to even have FIAT back in the States so I am thankful for that!

The 124 above is the whole package wrapped up into 1: from a Concours D'Elegance entrant to a daily driver to a current-day auto-xer.

Please excuse if this is a dumb question: is the exhaust Abarth or ANSA?

[villalancia]

For those who are new to Fiats or don't have first hand knowledge of the older cars, read the quotes below from Car & Driver. You'll see why the "old timers" here waited 28 plus years for Fiat to return and what the old cars were like. Cars like the 124 series set the curve back then. They were top rated cars from Consumer Reports and all the car magazines. Don't listen to the haters out there talking dirt about the old cars, they are clueless! Japanese cars with their leaf spring, cart like suspensions couldn't hold a candle to these cars. I'm grateful to those like shaggie's dad for keeping the spot light on these landmark cars.

I realize I'm reviving ancient threads here but this point merits reinforcement.

Fiats did have some problems adjusting to the needs of the U.S. market. I remember they'd arrive in the showrooms with the most beautiful paint finishes. But the harsh central California climate would kill the paint inside a few years. Fiat needed to learn to use different paints. The same went for the materials used on the dashboards and the seats. An early 124 coupe's interior tended to degrade prematurely. By 1973 it was MUCH more durable.

The Fiats were quite sophisticated for the typical American car buyer. Except for the totally esoteric German Glas company, Fiat were the first company to use timing belts to drive their overhead cam engines. Americans had no clue about them and how crucial it was to replace them at the specified interval. So they trashed the car for suffering catastrophic engine failure following a type of neglect that 20 years later most owners of imported cars knew not to do.

The emissions era ruined Fiats. By 1976 they were gutless and unreliable because of the added, ill-conceived hardware, much of it sourced from U.S. manufacturers. They gave terrible fuel economy. So Fiats ended up with a bad rep. But how many BMW 320i's from the 1970s do you see nowadays?