Expensive Fiat Ritmo

Max_Damage

Came across this on eBay, quite alot of money for a Fiat Ritmo (Strada)...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/80-Fiat-Strada-Original-Owner-Low-Miles-Rare-Find_W0QQitemZ4640439696QQcategoryZ6218QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

What's even more remarkable is the condition of the car, not a spec of rust anywhere:eek:!

Haven't seen one of these in the flesh since the mid-90's!

Darando

Cant see modern cars nowadays having the spare under the bonnet in beside the engine! Classic! Always remember my uncle having what was nicknamed a sh*tmo... think it ended up in a pile of rust at the end of the garden.

Max_Damage

Yeah, my parents used to have one aswell, it was originally orange, but slowly turned brown as the months went on!:D

Dilbert75

Brings back memories. I'd imagine that it'd last about two days in this country before it'd refuse to start and would be dissolved by the end of the week.

Our man in Havana

They use to be called Rustmo's for obivous reasons. Not worth $3000. €100 more like!

colm_mcm

the fact that its not rusty must make it worth a bit

Max_Damage

Surely somewhere down the line that car has been resprayed at least once. Not a chance it could go that long on the original paintwork, without showing a spot of rust.

bazz26

Bloody hell, haven't seen one of these in years. The last time I saw one was in the back garden of my uncle's house. It was being used as a green house.

To be honest I'm not surprised it could be rust free. The climate in certain parts of the US would suit it. There are plenty of classics still driving around over there these days, the amount of old pickup trucks from the 50s and 60s still on the road is amazing. Hardly any restore work done to them at all, due to the generally dry conditions rust is not an issue.

crosstownk

Rust or no rust - it's still junk:D

unkel

A Ritmo cannot and should not ever be a classic

The last time I saw one on the road here was in '94 and said brown Ritmo had several holes in the wings and it chuckled along at slow speed in large clouds of black smoke. Even a bit worse than the average car pre-Celtic Tiger - most cars were bangers back then!

BrianD3

I saw a Ritmo around a month ago in a yard near Naas. It was one of the early ons with the one piece front bumper/grille. Didn't get a very close look at it.

The 5 mph impact bumpers on that US Ritmo are hillarious though. Could they not have made a bit more effort to integrate them into the standard bumpers.

To those who say the Ritmo is a load of junk - have ye ever heard of the Ritmo 130 TC. One of the best (but relatively unknown) hot hatches of the 80s. In many ways it was a far better hot hatch than the VW Golf Mk2.

The Ritmo was an awful ruster though. In the early nineties a relative of mine owned one, I noticed one day that the rear bumper was hanging well down on one side, almost scraping off the road. I presumed that the bumper was just hanging off. But on closer inspection it was securely attached to the back of the car :eek: It was hanging down because the whole boot floor and rear structure were completely rotten and falling apart and the back of the car was in danger of collapsing onto the road at any time. My relative saw nothing wrong with this and joked about how he couldn't carry anything heavy in the boot! How things have changed in this country post NCT/scrappage scheme/Celtic Tiger!

Max_Damage

Come to think of it now, I actually saw a grey Ritmo for sale in the Auto Trader a few months ago, apprently 'rust free'. It was going for a few hundred.