Dez' 'fleet' thread. Another bl00dy transit!

Those seat mountings are BAD  . I have encountered a few terrible bodges on my Caddy and the Felicia pick-up which preceded it. I guess it is an occupational hazard when a vehicle has been worth too little to want to spend money on it. Mains cable featured on mine too.

I have broken a couple of Felicias so if there are any bits of trim etc you are short of give me a shout, I may be able to help.

I've had way too many Felicias including a few special editions and I've never encountered anything other than light grey. Basically the different trim levels got a different grey pattern on the centre of the still grey seats. What I'm saying is, they're all grey.

I have also only ever seen grey interior plastics in a Felicia, although I have seen two different shades of grey. The difference between them is not massive, however, to the extent that I would describe them as light grey and not quite so light grey.

Almost certainly I will have the speaker grille you need, and I may have a centre console, I will go to my lock-up this weekend and have a look. The blank panel to the RHS of the steering wheel I do not have, at least not one that has not been drilled or similar. That panel is unfortunately the obvious place for bodgers to fit their random switches, as it is so easy to run a length of twin and earth to it.

In all the massive excitement* of swapping cars and fixing bodges on em, I forgot to mention I’ve gone about further reducing the fleet by buying another car 😬

Well strictly speaking I didn’t buy it, the mrs did.
She was tired of the cube, or more specifically it’s slowness and it being a spazomatic. She’s pretty much always had hot hatches or small sportscars so it’s understandable she found the cube rather pedestrian.
After two solid days of internet trawling with either her discounting stuff for being ugly/slow/uneconomical/not tidy enough, or me discounting stuff for being red/french/a Nissan/a Vauxhall/too hard or expensive to get parts for, I’d basically narrowed it down to about 3 cars. Not 3 models/types/but 3 actual cars 😂

I did a driveby on one that was very local (it was so local I could figure out the street where it lived from the pics) I didn’t even get out of the car as I could see it had a badly painted rear quarter. I thought I could see it in pics hence me having a drive past, so that was immediately discounted.

2nd one looked promising but I did some digging on the guys FB profile and he was a local scrap dealer/backstreet car dealer type and I found where he’d bought it from and given there was no existence of him having fixed the issues it had when I got it, I passed on that too.

I thought I’d cracked it with no.3. Smol, fast-ish, sporty, rave reviews, no major faults with this model, a good stack of bills showing recent work, and other than some watermarks on the seats, tidy enough.
The two things I hated about it were black painted wheels (to me it’s the sign of a cheap cr4p ‘refurb’) and some wrapped bits of trim on the dash in a garish colour.
I contact the seller and tbh he was a total weirdo. I got the impression he didn’t actually want to sell the car, he said he was at uni in it and wouldn’t be going home for 3 weeks for me to look at. I said that’s fine let’s set a date and time, and he just never replied.

Felling a bit annoyed at this I removed all distance restrictions and searched for that specific model that no.3 was. This pinged up a car of the same make and model but in a different colour and only 20 miles further way. It was REALLY tidy for a 13 year old car, refurbed wheels, premium tyres,recently done brakes inc. painted calipers, fresh cambelt, new exhaust, and a huge plus of some upgraded sporty seats and steering wheel from a car only 3 years old. It was advertised at £500 more but looked worth it.

We went to view and next day, and we’ll, I wouldn’t be writing this if it didn’t come home with us, would I? The seller was previously in the trade and a specialist in the marque, and to give him his due I had trouble picking fault with it other than a couple of minor scratches and a small dent.
Internet points available for those who haven’t already seen it on FB or Insta…



And yes, you can get make, model and trim spec from that pic, as mylittletony already did!

Fabia scout ?
VAG group of some sort anyway.
James

The difference between light grey and not quite so light grey is more distinct than I remembered.

I can’t get owt past you lot 😆

It is indeed a Fiat panda 100hp.


I’d had brief looks at these in the past, but the ones I’d encountered were expensive or knackered or both. Ultimately a lot of that is down to the driver profile of such a car.

But when you find a nice one, I really can’t get over how good these little things are for a pretty much totally stock factory car. The factory suspension (that everyone else moans is too stiff) is great. They’re a bit lower and It is nicely stiff so it corners flat for such a tall car. It’s obvious fiat spent far more time on the suspension and chassis mods on this car than anything else, and it really shows.
The motor isn’t really anything special, it the last generation of the old FIRE motor that goes back generations, but with a good tune and map. It’s a typically Italian revvy little thing that loves being thrashed. You may have guessed it makes about 100hp.
What really makes it is the extra gear in the 6spd box that means you can really keep it singing through the gears when pushing on.
They also have better brakes (discs out back) and wider wheels and tyres.

The styling tweaks (arches, different bumpers, spoiler) really make it look more purposeful.
One thing that does let em down as stock is the interiors. They were better than lowlier models, it not really quite good enough for the rest of the car. Plus the seats are a proper rubbish material that watermarks really easily. They ALL have it to one degree or another, especially at this age.
But we don’t have to worry about that, cos it has these front and rear (and the steering wheel) out of an abarth 500, which totally makes the interior.



This specific car is also in great condition. The interior is pretty clean, the body only has a couple of small scratches and a tiny dent, the front bumper and bonnet have been repainted (well) to tidy it, the wheels have been recently refurbed and conti ecocontacts fitted. It’s had a new exhaust, cambelt, water pump, brakes, and anything else it needed really. It’s also avoided any of the ‘bottom-of-the-barrel’ cheapo car scene modifications a lot of others had been subjected to, like wheels painted sh1t colours and random bits of interior painted.

The spec is great, it has air con but not a sunroof which would be my exact choice of I was spec it new.
Plus you get all other the specific 100hp tweaks like sport mode that changes the power steering assistance and engine map, tinted windows, black interior plastics, the wheels etc.



I always thought these were a bit bigger than Lupos, mostly cos they’re 5dr I guess, but they’re exactly the same size and weight.


I’d really urge anyone who likes small quick B-road cars to search one of these out. They’re better out of the box than any other car of the type I’ve driven. The closest competitor is Probably a Lupo gti, and they’re not as good factory.
The other think is absolutely nothing can touch them on price. The cost of this one above? £1800. Bear in mind the seats and steering wheel are worth £500, it makes them a mega bargain. If I wanted one that wasnt mint there’s a few around sub-£1500. At £1800 I almost felt like I’d robbed the guy tbh! A Lupo gti in comparable condition will cost you 2-3 times that.
With them being at the cheap end of the scale at the mo, it means the bad ones are getting broken so I can see the good ones going up soon, especially as there’s only about 1500 to be going at anyway.

But, it falls into place perfectly in the fleet, and means the cube can now be moved on.

Great buy as always Dez. Nearly bought one of these in the past but nixed it as I was doing a lot of motorway mileage!

I understand that there are quite a few spicy engine transplants possible? Although looking at the condition of the car, might be better to buy a sh1**er to mess with!

I quite like the little window. They’re very similar to an A2 in side profile, which I really like and despite what a lot of people say I think is a great looking car.

I really don’t get why car manufacturers make such small engined cars with automatics, they’re just not fit for purpose.
Obviously there’s people like yourself with physical ailments that need automatics. But Automatics by their very design require copious amounts of low down torque to work adequately, something that is never supplied by such small revvy engines. You have to work them so hard to make any kind of progress they end up being worse on fuel than much larger capacity motors, so any environmental arguments go out the window.
Our 1.4l auto cube was worse on fuel day to day than my 1963 2.7l straight 6 falcon with a manual!
40 years between them and no real progress in that respect.
I often wonder how much better the cube would have been as a manual, but they never made them.