New SC Owner

[zachmac]

Hello to all,

I recently bought a 1980 FI spider, light green (Veridian I think?) with tan interior. The car was in central IL near where my dad lives so he was able to "vet" the car before I bought it. It was a California car for much of it's life and then garaged and NOT driven in IL winters so it is pretty clean rust wise. One older repaint of good driver condition. A little paint starting to bubble in the rocker panels but not even enough to warrant the $200 to replace those right now,

I flew into IL and drove the car back to SC over a two day period (840 miles) with no problems. I did get a scare the first day after about 500 miles when the car surged and lost power on the highway a couple of times but then regained it? Seemed like fuel starvation. I got off the road for the night and the next morning it started and ran fine the rest of the way home. Most likely stirred up some crap in the gas tank as I doubt the PO ran the tank down to near empty very often. I'll be changing out the fuel filter ASAP.

My plan for now is to just maintain the car as a very nice driver. I will of course change out all fluids, belts and hoses as I have no records whatsoever. Yes that includes timing belt!

I have previously owned an X19 and had two roommates in the Navy in 1978 that bought Spiders brand new. In addition, I have owned about 100 or so different cars in my 53 years of life on the third rock. I have done everything from a full concours winning Jaguar restoration (SII national champion after 6 years of work and way to much money) to a cosmetic restore on a 1961 Caddy convertible. As you can see my automotive tastes vary across a wide range. Basically I like anything with an engine that I can work on myself. Looking forward to learning everything there is to know about 124 Spiders and glad I found this great site.

BTW, my car has a brown dash and door panel caps. Was this some special package?

[rlux4]

Hello Zachmac, welcome to the forum. Well it certainly sounds like you know what you're doing getting into an older car. It would be interesting to hear after a while which you prefer, the Spider or the X19.
The brown dash (and a lot of times matching top section of the door panels) were options. You don't see them very often though. Post some pics of your car, I'll bet it looks fantastic.
Ron

[mbouse]

BRAVE is the man who travels over 750 miles in two days in an untested antique car.

welcome to the site.

i hope that venture becomes just one of many for you and your family. lots of miles with smiles

[ga.spyder]

Welcome to the forum.Where are you in S.C? There are quite a few FLU members in SC,NC,and Ga. You just missed FiatFest in Winston-Salem,but Italian Car Day in Atl. is just around the corner! Post some pix when you can.
Craig

[zachmac]

Thanks to all for the greeting and comments. I'll post some pictures soon. Got it all apart right now to clean it up and firgure out just what I bought!