This (actually last) week word came down that Fiat is having difficulty in the US market:
Fiat's American dealerships seem to be having trouble bringing in customers and paying running costs. Effective March 9th, parent company FCA will allow Fiat dealerships to combine operations with Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram dealers, many of which are right next door. Dealers that choose to stay independent will receive monthly assistance from FCA. Sales numbers for Fiat dealers are abysmal. Less than half of the 206 Fiat dealers in the US are profitable, and two-thirds see less than 10 sales per month.
The sentence that stuck out for us was this one:
We're willing to bet that more people would accidentally see a Fiat 500 while looking for a Jeep Wrangler than would actually go out looking for a 500.
Yeah, probably.
Anyway, I thought this might be a good time to revisit an old post of mine. Slightly embarrassing for me since I botched the cooling system in the original post, but no more than having your entire line recalled for rust problems.
And feel free to discuss this or anything else you may wish to.
Fiat 850 Sport Coupe
"There comes a time in a man's life when he hears the call of the sea. If the man has a brain in his head, he will hang up the phone immediately."
— Dave Barry
Some (most?) people go through some form of mid-life crisis and buy a brand new sports car, or maybe that classic muscle car they either had or wanted as a teenager. Others dump their wife/husband and kids and take up with a trophy spouse or perhaps an old flame they recently met at a school reunion or found on Facebook. Still others decide they really feel20 again and start wearing the clothes that today's "young people" wear, listen to the music they listen to, and maybe try to skateboard or trail bike their way 
Of course, we here at Car Lust are different. When we take a walk down memory lane and try to recapture lost youth, we often end up being seized by a mad desire to buy some off-the-wall forgotten car that no one in their right mind few would consider collectible, classic, or even desirable. Thankfully, the feeling usually passes in a few days and besides, the rarity of our objet d'Lust usually makes them difficult to find in any kind of drivable condition, although they tend to be pretty affordable (eBay and the Internet generally can be deadly in our world).
I confess here for all the world to see that despite my obvious disgust with our family's 1975 Buick Century, I did, in fact, troll the Interwebs for a couple days with the half-baked intent to find a 455 GS coupe version of the Century. Why, I don't know. Despite my hatred of that miserable car, I still like they way the coupes look and would love to have another go with it, with suitable modifications to make it a nice driver. Thankfully, financial common sense (i.e., being a cheapskate) and lack of available merchandise (not to mention a potentially murderous Spousal Unit) dissuaded me from acting on that particular impulse.
Digging into my past once again, I've recently recalled another then-hated car that I've consequently developed something of a fetish for, despite my intimate personal knowledge of its many and varied foibles. To wit: The Fiat 850 Sport Coupe. Indulge me, gentle reader, by continuing to read below the fold, but FOR GOD'S SAKE AND ALL THAT IS HOLY, DON'T LET ME KNOW IF YOU HAVE ONE FOR SALE CHEAP. At least not for the next few days anyway.
