1970 Fiat 850 Sport Coupe from Australia and New Zealand - Comments

The most challenging problem was loss of spark due to failure of the insulation on the low tension lead into the distributor body, shorting out the points. Even the experts took several hours to diagnose.

The only on-road failure in 6 years was combined loss of battery and starter motor relay.

I had a near disaster experience with the triple rocker switch unit (lights/wipers) burning out at night - an obvious weak point in older vehicles as heat builds up across oxidized contacts.

With a relay across the ignition and extra relays across the lighting circuits it is now the most reliable Fiat I have had and starts easily.

This is the third 850 Sports Coupe I have owned in 32 years. It took me that long to work out how to make them run properly!

I undertook an 18 month rolling restoration from July 1997 involving extensive rust repair, engine rebuild, head conversion to unleaded fuel, mild cam, upgraded clutch, interior refurbish and addition of Cromodora alloys.

A fun car to drive, it matches modern traffic in most areas, acceleration and brakes being the downside. But does it love to rev!

I owned a Fiat 850 back in the 1970s. It was a heap of fun, but they have a couple of things to watch out for if you are going to take one on. (1) the fan belt system - long belts with tension adjusted by pulley shims. It's easy to get this wrong. The upshot I found was one of the pulleys flew to pieces and spat steel throught the side of the car. (2) It looked like there were steel components in some of the electrics, notably the voltage regulator terminals. Corrosion was a problem that needed to be monitored and caused power outages (seems darn odd and I may be wrong, but there seemed to be rust on the VR terminals). (3) Under-body seemed to be very prone to rust. Mine failed when the front suspension parted company with the rest of the car due to rusted chassis members.

I loved my 850--my first car.

Unfortunately I didn't understand the need clean out the centrifugal oil filter and ruined the engine.

I welded a Camero glass pack muffler onto the exhaust, installed an electronic ignition and did other tweaking so it had a little bit more power than most.

I had it parked in the street during the Great Chicago snow storm and thought, what the hell, it has rear wheel drive with the engine weight on the rear tires so lets see if I could drive. At the time the snow was about two feet deep. It readily pulled out of the gully it was in and I was off. The bottom of the car off course dragged a slight bit on the snow, but with no problem. So I went around town and since no other vehicles were out, I had a blast spinning out and and doing all sorts of crazy stunts to the shock of every one who dared be looking out their windows.

I lived in Italy in the early '70's - everybody drove Fiats and nobody seemed to have any problems. So in early 1974 I purchased a used 850 Spyder -it was GREAT until I took it to the dealer for service - never ran right again. It truly lived up to it's name - Fix it Again Tony. I got rid of it after only about 6 months and purchased a new Datsun 710.

It's a very cute little car for it's time. It was a shame to see them rot. The carb needed two fuel filters for them to run right. Are there any still for sale from california.