Fiat X19

A quick peruse of the superb PistonHeads website brought me to their SOTW (Shed of the Week) page and a Fiat X19. I had one of these some years ago and although it gripped the road like poo to a blanket, I don’t recall really driving it too much, my memories of the late seventies has faded somewhat, must be the beer.

I had bought it from a garage in London, when it was still very much a rarity in the UK, or even Europe. In fact I think the salesman told me that it was the first RHD model ever made and we all know that car salesmen never lie!  Whatever, as is usual with all my car dealings common sense went out of the window, rapidly followed by the contents of my wallet; I had to buy it….

In those days I was in the Army and based in Paderborn in Germany, so the car came with me to the Fatherland. For various reasons I didn’t use the car much whilst there, but on one trip out the car broke down with an electrical fault. I called out ADAC (the equivalent of the RAC) who arrived to investigate. They found that the car had been adapted from LHD to RHD and moreover rather than using the correct wiring loom, ALL the wiring connections had been done in green earth wire! Disaster! Any wiring faults were therefore impossible to trace.

I had the car towed by one of our Land Rovers back to barracks…. It may still be there.