1981 Fiat 127 MkII

[coruas]

Hi Guys, 

I'm new to this board, and I really like seeing all the builds and mods on your cars. 
Being a huge classic and retro car fan myself, I've always wanted to work on classic cars, and drive a daily classic etc... 

So after buying a Alfa GT 1300 Junior which is rusted to the core (future project), I decided to buy a daily retro ride. Something practical, fun, small. Having had a knack for (hot) hatches and coupes, I decided to look for a car like this. Made a small list of cars that could fit the bill:  Peugeot 205 XR/GTI, Fiat 127, Alfa GTV 2.0, BMW Z3 coupé, AE86 Trueno, a celica ta22 or other, a vw polo coupé or an Audi 50.

Then the decision was made for me. While on vacation my father sends me some pictures of a nice Fiat 127, parked at our neighbour right across the street!  I immediately liked the car when I saw it.


After talking a bit to my neighbour I got it for peanuts!!  He agreed to get in decent driving shape. 

I don't want to make the intro too long so here she is, the way I bought her back in August last year:

[baggabones]

We need pictures! ....lots!!!

[coruas]

[coruas]

Before buying it, I wanted to make sure that the car wouldn't need too much much to get it the way I wanted it. And ofcourse, I asked if I could wash the car to check for rotten spots and the general state of the car.

Thankfully, the car was full of rust protection. Even the entire engine bay was coated in this filth.

After doing the wash, I indeed found a little bit of rot, between the right sill and right front wheelarch, which you can see in the next pictures. But I didn't look too bad, nothing a little welding can't fix.

[coruas]

  Haha, I'm working on it, adding pictures is proving more difficult than I thought. 

Aug 31, 2015 14:43:21 GMT baggabones said:

We need pictures! ....lots!!!

[coruas]

Uploading pictures in proving harder than I thought.

When uploading a picture, "undefined" appears instead of the filename on imgur.

What am I doing wrong, any help here?

[slater]

That's an amazing car. I take it your not English?

[coruas]

Aug 31, 2015 18:56:33 GMT slater said:

That's an amazing car. I take it your not English?

Thank you very much. no, indeed. I'm Belgian, with Italian heritage. I'm trying to make some decent posts, but without the pictures it's useless. Any other way of putting images up here?

[coruas]

I think I found out what was causing trouble with the pictures.

Here a some pics of the car after I drove it for a while, the bad spot is visible in these.











In these pictures, it's already a little visible what I wanted to achieve. Removed rear bumper, because let's face it. The 127 has a great behind.

You might also notice the headliner is missing, because it started to sag the 2nd month I was driving it. One day I got in, and it was just resting against my head, so I took it out immediately.

[coruas]

I wanted to give the car a nice racey, hillclimb kind of look, without going too much overboard.

Main things are:

Bodywork and repaint (but keep the yellow door, haha)
Bumper removal, front and back
Trim removal
New exhaust
Lowering (not too much)
Different and wider wheels

So I tried a little photoshop to see what this would look like.














Many of these I had to cross off the list, because they were either not the right bolt patter, or too wide and too tall for the car.
Some of these shops look really ridiculous and cartoonish.

I really liked alot of these modern Alfa Romeo rims aswell, but nothing decent presented itself online. So I decided to wait.
One set of rims stood out in these renders, the Momo vega's.

I really liked these, but a new set were too expensive for me at the time, though they look really good. So I went for the next best thing.

The rims I bought were also made by Momo, but they are almost period correct. And they actually give the car a nice retro feel. In the renders you can see that I already tried playing with the colors a bit.

[coruas]

Having decided on the rims I went and bought them.



They are Momo "classics". 13x6, magnesium rims.



Here wrapped with 165 55 13 tyres, making the car a bit lower already.

[baggabones]

I love your plans for this and your choice of wheels....watching with interest how this develops

[coruas]

The yellow paper in the center was for testing out what the car would look like with center caps of this color. In the photoshops it's more visible.

I had this yellow accent color going from the start. Because I didn't have a shift knob, I wanted something a little different and not too expensive. So I decided to go for the pool ball that I would drill out myself.

At first I had a 9 ball. But I decided to switch it out for a solid yellow one. This one was smaller, and felt more comfortable for shifting. You can see it in most of the photos coming later.

[coruas]

Finding these center caps for these rims was an impossible task.
Original ones were sold out everywhere, modern ones didn't fit... Finding them in a solid yellow or with the abarth scorpion on there was also not an option.

So again, improvisation was called for.

Browsing around I found something that could be a solution. These are plastic caps that are used in the industry for closing maintenance holes on machinery, or caps that are used to close off tubing, metal poles, table, legs...
They were also hard to get a hold of, but finally, I had something.



The stickers were drawn in Illustrator and then I had them lasercut on a yellow vinyl that matches the pool ball shift knob.

[coruas]

They are a very snug fit. And the vinyl, once protected with a layer of uv resistant transparent film, will also stay in good shape for a long time.

Again, I was trying out some shops of the rims, because I couldn't decide if I should do something to make the wheels a bit more modern yes or no...







After boring most of my friends with details of "what-should-be-black-and-what-shouldn't-whatdoyouthinkaboutit" that they couldn't even notice, I decided to just let them be for a while.

[coruas]

Before I could actually drive it, I had some time to clean some engine bits.

I really wanted to test out the abilities of this sonic cleaner I bought, so I took apart the carb and cleaned it.

[coruas]

So finally, brought it in for bodywork.

Started stripping the car:









The last shot is one you guys might like. In the background is an Austin clubman estate. One of the next projects of the guy who is helping me with the bodywork.

[HoTWire]

I do rather like the Fiat 127, given your options I think you picked the same wheels I would have done, this should look really nice when it is done.

[Carlosfandango.]

Well, pics were asked for and you certainly delivered there!
Looks like a great project.
I love these 127 models and when you take the bumpers off, it really does change the look of the car (for the better).
I had about four or five of them when I was a lad - they were the cheapest thing around at the time! I remember paying £28 for one - it lasted me for ages & I had a lot of fun in it.
Drove across a field covered in snow with my mates once, heading towards a snowman - looking forward to demolishing it, only to discover after a loud bang that the snowman was built around a bollard.. Ouch.
I limped home...
There are some awesome videos on youtube of these racing - good for inspiration for you - but it sounds like you know what you want.
Good luck with the build.

CFD

[willemm]

Ooooo yes, very nice and a lot of pics

Great rimms to,good job on the carb.

Very nice workshop too WOW.

Ciao