Project BAMBINO

This project has been around for some time now. At least 15 years up the back of one of my sheds. The Essex and life in general have got in the way but on discovering a vigorous Fiat 500 club in Adelaide and some one wanting to accept the 1100D as a gift thus clearing some working space work has started.

Some previous owner decorated it each side (for a pageant?)  with the stylised word KISS and then took the trim off and rubbed it roughly down. The other side is not touched. The rubbing down might have been a previous "restorer" Fortunately it was left near enough to intact, unlike the 1100D which was dismantled into a mess of parts, some destroyed by weathering

This 500 is a very early one, possibly the first of it's type. Well worn but the later part, if not all of it's life was in the dry country. Little deep and body rust and an amazing amount of dirt combined with the leaked oil from the engine and transmission.

The surface rust on exposed metal components leads me to thing it had some salt water exposure at the end of it's life

Restored engine thanks to Tony Potter of the Fiat 500 club

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We are FIAT people from way back with a brace of  Eleven hundreds, a 1500 and in later years, two Fiat made Lancias as past personal transport.

These were all cars of technical sophistication and fun to drive so it will come as no surprise two of our restored have been Fiats with the latest a 1957 500 N.

This was found in Whyalla with a incomplete history only going back as far as Renmark. The sad little dented thing with all of it's trim and other removable external parts poked inside it, the word KISS emblazoned on one side and the other side rubbed in part back to bare metal in someone's half hearted restoration start was put up the back of one of the farm sheds and ignored for fifteen years.

Eventually the time was right. We have "restored" three other cars but in retrospect, did we? Most of the mechanical work was done on the 1500E, my father's Mercedes only needed the things that keep a car looking good and running well and the Essex was more of a blacksmith and carpenters job.

Not so the 500. EVERYTHING had to be restored or replaced.

Slowly a history developed. This had been a country car. This car had at one time been owned by an idiot. There was red dirt. Forty litres of the stuff just inside the car and a 30 mm coating anywhere on the motor and transmission, which was just about everywhere oil had leaked. Unfortunately,  not quite enough oil to protect all the studs and nuts from the salty water the car may have been in. What else could make unpainted metal so rusty and every third stud break and every second nut strip?

Somewhere in Australia, I hope, there is a  still living amateur mechanic whose ears burnt every time I made comments about his parentage and sexual deviancy when I found a non metric nut or stud forced in place. The engine was dropped of at Tony Potter's in Adelaide for repair. Tony is President of the Fiat 500 club and when I approached him about finding a mechanic qualified to do this work he said "I do nothing else but work on 5 hundreds" You should see this place. Little Fiats wall to wall and a shed full of bits. With Tony I had struck gold.

With his help, the needed bits that could not be bought over the counter from Leo Nozza's shop and with a dip into E-bay were gathered together from all over the world and Tony's shed.

A Fiat of this vintage has lots of double skinned panels to trap moisture thus rust can be a serious problem. It had a fair share of rusted out areas but not structural so fiberglassing was my option. Dents that could be reached were knocked out. Dents in double skinned areas had PKs screwed in and the dents levered out. Lots of body bog used. Paint was stripped to bare metal and the large areas of surface rust treated. This was the turn of the half hearted restorer's ears to burn