Death by SUV

Every Fiat owner's nightmare. It came to pass on Oct 21 2001, one fine Friday afternoon only a couple of miles from home. After work I came home through the backroads. Just before town I came up behind a Jeep Grand Behemoth. Surprisingly, it moved over and let me by. A mile later I'm sitting at a stop sign at the major boulevard that enters town waiting for a clearing in oncoming traffic to make a right. I notice the Jeep pulling up behind me. The next thing I know, I hear the Jeep revving up and I glance in my rear view mirror just in time to see it ramming into me.

It appears that the driver of the Jeep was looking at the oncoming traffic, instead of the car in front of her (me), and assumed that I'd already pulled out when in fact I hadn't. The end result is illustrated in the fotos below.

THE DAMAGE

THE PUNCHLINE

The infamous 850's fate was discussed to some length on the Mirafiori Fiat Forum. As expected, the East Coast folks insisted that the car be saved. In a sense they had a good point. One rear panel and one engine lid and the car is as good as new. I don't dispute that, except for a couple of things. 1) Recall that I bought the car initially for parts. 2) Despite how good the car looks from 20 feet and in pictures, the fact remains that it's a rust bucket. And most importantly, 3) my insurance put in an estimate of $2200 (!) to repair the car. Given that I only had the car insured for $2000, they called it a total loss.

So I took the money, kept the car, parted it out and now have all the parts I need to restore my '67 850 Spider. Below are the last two pictures taken of the little guy, ready to be towed to the crusher. One dies so that another may live...

Lalo's Fiat 850 Page

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