I had to sell this project in January 2010 to fund some other projects.

1958 Fiat Nuova US - Bug eyes, suicide doors, fairly complete and all the rust is surface rust. The engine is there and turns over by hand easily. Rolls easy, and there are a couple of the original bars for rag top in it. This is a rare car as it was only made for a couple of years with the US spec bug eyes. Only the early US bound cars had the bug eyes and the earliest like this one have suicide doors. I bought it from a couple up in Riverside who bought from a man up in the high desert. Therefore only a little surface rust. The pictures above were taken tonight, June 2009. While I love the little guy he has to go as I'm getting divorced and need to thin down the herd.

While on an errand for work, I passed by a local tow yard and saw the cutest bright orange Fiat 500. It had the towel bar (as I refer to it) front bumper and looked to be in great shape. I talked to the lady behind the counter and she gave me the date that the little car would be auctioned. While up in the area again, I showed my girlfriend the little car and she loved it as much as I did. About a month later, the little car was to be auctioned, and we both took the morning off from work. We met there and found that there wasn't a Fiat listed in the cars being auctioned!!! Well it turned out that the little car had been pulled out of the auction by the yard's owner who believed he owned his retirement in this little car. Our very reasonable offer wasn't even in the ballpark for what he wanted.

On the day of the auction, I wasn't able to be home to keep an eye on it. I had made arrangements to go on a big mountain bike ride on a new trail. We had been planning the ride for a about a week and a half. I asked my girlfriend to call me and leave me a message when she got up to see what the result was. When I got back to my truck after the ride, somehow the auction had completely slipped my mind. Turned my phone on, called Shelly and started telling her how great the ride was. She had to bring up the auction as the great ride had absorbed all other thought. She told me the auction had just gone crazy in the last few minutes before it ended and we didn't win. She expected me to be pretty bummed, but when she told me it went for substantially more than we were willing to spend, I couldn't feel bad about that. It was a great little car and I had no doubt it went for that kind of money. Looking back on it, she seemed almost bummed that I wasn't more upset that we didn't get the baby Fiat. After about the 3rd time of her asking me if I was OK and just talking about the auction, she laid it out there. Apparently she was feeling a little frisky and had lied. She thought she was just hilarious. I think my heart actually stopped as I was really just floored that she had pulled this little joke off so successfully. We did win the auction and the car, for a great price. It had sat at that price for most of the week of the auction.

The trip to pick up the Baby Fiat, was so uneventful in comparison to picking up the Mini Cooper it almost isn't worth writing about. We did get to meet Ryan and his wife we bought the car from, who were great people. They had bought the car after going to the Concourse de' Italiano show and falling in love with the little Fiats. About two years earlier, they had bought the car from a man located in the high california desert. That would explain the lack of rust that has attacked the car. There is a little surface rust here and there, but really not much.

Once again we borrowed the trailer from my neighbor Matt. We drove to Ryan and his wife's house, pulled up to the garage, closed the deal, and pushed our new '58 Fiat 500 up on the trailer. No problem. Strapped it down shook hands and were off. I was pretty excited and kept looking in the mirror at the little bug eyed monster. Once again, on the drive home, Shelly and I discussed names. Some how, we eventually agreed on "Gerb". While I can't recall where it came from now, it certainly fits the little bug eyed critter.