2017 Fiat 124 Spyder (basically a Mazda Miata MX-5)

sunvalleylaw said:
I remember your discussing that in another thread. I have no special love for fiats, having been an Alfa guy myself. And other than the alfa enthusiasts liking the original miata as something somewhat similar to what an updated spider could have been, I have no real connection. It is interesting to me, and a bit curious, that this fiat mashup occurred.

PS, Though I liked the looks of TR6's, they were somewhat tractor like in their frame and chassis design, it seemed to me. Not sure about the MG's. The Miatas seemed much more nimble. I recall that the Elan was much more nimble than those older Triumphs and MGs as well.
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Derp. Italian roadsters....Fiat, Alfa...tomato tomahto :wink:
 
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Make no mistake. The original 1st model year Miata was ten times the car that ANY of those old European roadsters ever were. It's a hard pill to swallow for someone like me who is tremendously enamored with the classic offerings from Triumph, MG, FIAT, Alfa, Lotus, Jensen, Austin etc. They were all brilliantly styled and adorable pieces of total crap. All of them.

They were all underpowered, loosely sprung and shoddily assembled. Great fun weekend back road drive cars, that handled poorly, could barely stop, we're slower than a 3 legged mule, and virtually rusted away to dust before your eyes.

A few more "stout" examples were sprinkled here and there at least on the performance side, but the reliability was still atrocious.

The Miata was well built, had great road manners with a responsiveness that its predecessors could never attain. It had decent, reliable power, and a wealth of overall improvements on the roadster idea as a whole.

Nostalgia for those old shitburgers is really their only attraction. Would I love to own a mint condition TR6, or Alfa Veloce Spider? Hell yes I would! But I wouldn't delude myself into thinking it was anything other than a mediocre driver and a gigantic repair bill waiting to happen.

All of this is what really makes this new 124 Spider so appealing to me. It pretty much represents the first ever European roadster that is more than just eye candy. A well built Italian roadster that has good power, good manners, reliability and creature comforts with the ability to actually survive an impact as a driver or passenger is quite literally unprecedented.
 
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OGG said:
They were all underpowered, loosely sprung and shoddily assembled. Great fun weekend back road drive cars, that handled poorly, could barely stop, we're slower than a 3 legged mule, and virtually rusted away to dust before your eyes.

A few more "stout" examples were sprinkled here and there at least on the performance side, but the reliability was still atrocious.
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Hey there! Old Alfa's have good brakes, and a good 2 liter dual overhead cam engine that is also a hemi! And start out with ok horsepower and can be tuned to have much more! And they handled pretty well for their day.

But ok, rust, electronic reliability, not gonna argue with you there. :wink: And, warm up your car properly or be prepared to replace the head gasket regularly. And you either had to have a good mechanic to maintain the SPICA fuel injection, or switch it over to side by side Webers, or Dellortos as my car is.

I think the feel the original miatas had coupled with the better reliability is what attracted the old alfisti to them.
 
Lerxst said:
Fiat has decided that in an effort to provide more "authentic character" they are going to scrap the Mazda electronics and engage Lucas to design a whole new system :wink:
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I had a good chuckle over that only because I remember redoing all of the electrics in my brother's second Triumph Spitfire that I eventually got him to replace the one I wrecked.

What a nightmare.

Once all the Lucas crap had been removed and replaced with a scratch built MSD system, it was a different car. It took me weeks, but the results were ultimately satisfying.

Magnetti Marelli is the shitty electronic provider of choice for the FIAT family of brands. Not so sure that is better...
 
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