Faults:

Nothing - bit of rust along the roof near the F/F glass sunroof, caused by my own cack handed fitment of a replacement aerial, which allowed water past the seal - doh!

General Comments:

Had 3 of these - a basic OHV 45, a 60S, and this, the latest and the best engined and best equipped. All were MK1s, with the quirky but oh so functional dash. These cars were huge inside, great on fuel, reliable and a fun drive. In the days pre power steering and fancy suspension, cars like this put the driver in touch with what was happening below them.

As ever the engines loved to rev - you don't have to be doing 200mph to have fun behind the wheel, and these cars were fun to drive.

Sadly with modern innovations, FIAT no longer make small cars that are this good.

FORZA UNO!!

Faults:

Electrical faults - usually poor earths. Easy to remedy and not so bad, given the car's age. Always sorted by myself.

Rust eventually ate it up.

General Comments:

Purchased as a cheap commuting hack, for which it served me very well indeed. I found this quite low mileage model, and got it laughably cheap - basically the change I had in my wallet.

Having had 2 other Unos, I had overcome my fears, and found this one to be very sweet and crisp feeling, if not the best performer. (Previous one had been good for 170 plus - how about that?) Still quite adequate though. I put in a nice stereo and off we went. It served me very well for about 4 years. Never used oil, and the only breakdown was when it once wouldn't start - bad fuel I suspect.

Alas once I hit a parking bollard and totally destroyed the right front. God, these things are flimsy - crumple zone? Yeah right.. So I wouldn't recommend hitting anything larger than perhaps a bumble bee who had signed up to Jenny Craig in one.

Nevertheless I did like the economy, the versatility - could swallow up a whole lot of gear with the seats folded, and the style. Most men here in NZ seem to like the larger cars, or perhaps a wheezy imported 4x4 on easy hire purchase. I found there seemed to be endless goateed guys driving these sitting right on my rear bumper. I won't go into the whole inadequacy complex thing here; suffice to say that the Uno was good for me, and smarter folks liked my style - let's just say. It probably saved me billions in gas money over the years as well. Couldn't quite hold back the whole Iraq thing though, but close.

Handling wise it wasn't really very good, but not totally awful either. A front sway bar as fitted to the MkII models would probably have helped thing enormously. I have to say I did like the steering, the steering feedback was superb, so you could really push it right to the (lowish) limits. Silly really as I found the skinny 155 section Euro tyres quite hard and expensive to obtain.

Alas as time went on, I got sick of the rust constantly breaking out, despite it being immaculate on purchase. Sold it for 2 1/2 times my purchase price, so I would say it served me very well indeed. You DO need to be a bit handy to fix those electrical anomalies though mind you. I sat in one recently, and found they are quite the small car.

Well, they are all getting a bit long in the tooth now, so I'd not recommend one to anybody... But mine was good!

Happy motoring ;)