HAH
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Kinda cheating on that cylinder count, eh FIAT?

With the X you have about $1,700 less leg room, horsepower, reliability and storage space. I had an X-GF that had one. Its SOC motor was smooth and it wound up nicely, but at 6-2" I barely fit and it was a gutless wonder.

Nice try Fiat. :-)

Unless you're talking about the "Fix It Again Tony" "F.I.A.T." reputation for them running on 3 cylinders - then they were in fact the same 4 cylinder engine by jug count, but the performance in our 914s were clearly better!


Tom
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I had a gf with one too. I remember her more than the fiat.

Side by side, there is clearly more metal in the 914. 1700 worth for sure.

In 1980, I was 16. I drove a 74 914 2.0, my friend had an old x19. my car was way flipping nicer to drive, ride in and look at. The only things the x19 had that I didn't were terminal rust and heat.

and If I had known back then all I know now, mine would have had heat.

I just found a Road and Track comparison test from 1970 with the 914, Fiat 124, TR-6, and MGB Mk II. I'll scan it sometime soon, and add it to this thread, as your title is appropriate for this article as well

Now the 124's that were equipped with the four cylinder twin cam motors were actually quite nice up to a point. Still had major rust issues, typical Italian car electrical issues, solid live axle in the rear and except for the "2000" models in the 80's the Spider they all had steering boxes with about a dozen ball joints in the steering linkage. They were also blessed with extremely fragile differentials, rear drum brakes, brittle plastic everything in the interior, seats that had good vinyl but the stitching was made of spider web (not really, but it always falls apart).

The 124 spiders looked good in the 60's, but I always thought it was odd that they stuck with that styling all the way up through the end of their production into the early 80's. What else? 14" wheels, bad paint, lots of unobtanium parts, pedals that were too close together...

I had two 124 sedans, both w/ twin cams. A close friend has both 124 spiders and coupes. The motors were awesome and pretty easy to work on if you had the right tools. Much easier to fiddle with than Alfa motors of the same vintage.

The thing that really drove me away from Fiats is that you could tell they were never meant to live on past their service life. You also needed child sized hands to work efficiently on lots of different parts of the car. While so much of the 914 was meant to be worked on trackside the 124's were just plain lousy to service.

Alright, that's my yearly Fiat rant. Look, I didn't even get into Fiat's terrible post-purchase service or timing belt issues in the 70's (but that was really a 128 issue...). :-)

I've owned my Fiat since 1988 and it's been pretty dependable. Kinda hard on pavement though....

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