A Work in Progress # 4: 1978 Series 1 Fiat X1/9

This dead-straight, totally rust free 1978 Series 1 Fiat X1/9 is one of four concurrent Work in Progress articles featuring or to be featured on UMPH at the minute, joining Todd's Alfa GTV, the Alfa Male's 33 and a yet-to-be-published piece on an ex-Ed Ordynski Suzuki Sierra that's undergoing a full chassis-up rebuild.  It's also of particular personal interest to the author, as you might soon recognise. 

The car's original owner is not known.  However, the late Peter Prestage - the visionary former head of Tasmania Police Forensic Services - bought it around 1980, before selling it to Iain Watson in the early 1990s. 

Iain (aka John) has had a long love of all things automotive and involvement in motorsports, having owned everything from T-series MGs, a GT Cortina, a VW Beetle rally car and numerous Fiats, as well as being a founding member of the Light Car Club of Canberra and Targa Tasmania competitor.  He also raced motorcycles at Longford - where he met and befriended GP legend Jackie Stewart, who he used to take shooting around Tasmania's Scotsdale area - and was also a flag official at Symmons Plains in the mid-1960s.

Although the X1/9 hasn't seen competitive action, it was used as a lead car for the touring category of Targa Tasmania some years back, where Iain no doubt explored the limits of the event brief.  If anyone's ever driven Tasmania's country roads, they'll know there's lots of fun to be had on the twisty bits without needing to break any speed limits!

In Targa livery

Sadly, a career climbing into, onto and under everything from RAAF Hercules transport planes, police cars and boats, firetrucks and emergency services' radio masts as a radio-tech haven't done Iain's back any favours, requiring him to rethink his commitment to folding himself into the diminutive Fiat's cockpit.  It had to end sometime and end it did, aged 80.  The upright seating of a Nissan X-Trail is so, so much more comfy!

And so it is that the X1/9 has found a new owner who, with the acquiescence of an understanding wife, has added it to his modest stable of 1970s / 80s cars.  Well, two cars, to be accurate: his forever car, the mighty Galant, and another X1/9.

Iain and his ex-X.

Apparently, Fiat collecting only becomes obsessive when you've got three.

Exactly how work on the Series 1 will proceed depends on what's discovered over the next few weeks.  There's no doubt that the body's sound and that duco's fine, for now at least.  The interior isn't too shabby, either.  The engine's a little asthmatic but there are already plans to address this, as there are to sharpen up the handling.  However, there are Italian electrics to be considered and it would be foolhardy to underestimate the complexity of an X1/9 cooling system, too... .

U M P H

(uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au.)

All iPhone images.