LINCOLN MORDECAI'S 1978 124 SPIDER

When I left school and wanted to get my first car my intention was, like most lads, to get something a little ballsy but a little unique. It seems every kid in Australia drives a V8 Holden of some sort so that didn't seem an option. Through a good friend I learnt of the Fiat 124 Coupe. Good looking car, revs like a bastard and handles great. Seemed good enough for me. They sold in limited numbers down under and good examples were hard to find; I went through three over about 5 years. There was something missing though. I had always wanted a convertible. Ever since I could remember my mum wanted an MG A or B. Not knowing they were gay at the time, I was of a similar attitude.

Then something amazing happened. In 1993 I was driving through Chatswood in Sydney when I noticed a rather sharp looking soft top I'd never seen before. It was parked with no one nearby so I went for a closer look. To my amazement it bore the 124 Sport badge of my Coupe. I couldn't believe it. It was long before the internet was a viable option so I hit the books and did some research. This was a car never imported to Australia but carried all the mechanicals, chassis et cetera of my coupe but with a drastic body design improvement and the all important soft top. I had
to have one.

Two years later I had the money to do something about it. Living back in Adelaide I looked up a mechanic called Peter Taylor who specializes in the Fiat line. Coincidentally, he is now President of the Fiat Lancia Car Club of South Australia. He put me on to an American chap that was importing Spiders from the USA to Australia. It was still very much a fledgling business at the time, Spiders were, and still are, a rare sight on Australian roads. With his help I bought a Spider out of California for $1000-00 US. By the time it was imported and all the appropriate taxes and duties were paid it owed me around $4500-00 AU. Not a small amount of money for a car that didn't even run and had clearly seen better days. It mattered not. Although it was a despicable purple colour, the interior was stuffed and the engine a paper weight I saw the immense potential
right from the start.

The first thing to do was to convert it to Right Hand Drive as Left Hand Drive cars are not permitted on Australian roads unless they are 30 years old or more. I wasn't prepared to wait until 2008. The conversion was surprisingly straight forward. Peter had a 124 BC Coupe that was of wrecking value only, the rust was eating it to dust. So, out with the old, in with the older. A few holes had to be cut and filled in the firewall but that was the worst of it. As the dash is basically symmetrical the only thing needed was a good plastic welder and new wood for the dash. Many Spiders I've seen have just flipped the wood from one side to the other but that leaves unsightly screw holes on the outer face of the glove box lid, so that wouldn't do. Finding an engine was made easy by the fact that the BC Coupe we were stripping had a fine running 1600 amazingly with the twin down draught weber carburettors still attached! Emission controls aren't nearly as stringent on cars of that age down under, so the motor of an Australian delivered 124 was a necessity anyway.

With the conversion done an engineer inspected the car to ensure she met Australian Design Rules. Certificate in hand I only had to make two trips to the Inspection centre to have it registered. The guys down there can be fascists at times, but I digress. Next step, the body. Sometime in the past the previous owner of this old girl had gotten one of those $250-00 resprays you hear about. You know the ones, when there are live flies stuck in the paint? Anyway, that had to go. A friend of the family (now retired) had a paint shop specialising in jobs on this kind of car. His work was always superb, so I had no hesitation in sending it to him. There had to be major changes in the body work though. This car has classic lines and I wanted them all on show. 100 pounds of ridiculous bumper bars went in the bin, as did the parking lamps in the front and rear guards and the body side mouldings. I managed to source indicators from an early spider to fit into
the body and the honeycomb grille to match. The results are quite stunning I believe. It still blows me away when I hear of people getting their Spider resprayed and not discarding those damn bumper bars! Naturally the colour had to be as the factory intended, Nero.

It took about 6 months to get her back from paint, then the new interior went in.Along the way over the last few years I've found a few odd bits here and there. A nice Abarth steering wheel, some deep dish superlite alloy wheels and a strong 2.0litre motor with mild cams. I had the valve covers polished to liven up the engine bay a little. Also, I found an alloy timing belt cover on eBay. These things were never made to fit a 2.0 litre so a bit of a cut and shut and then a polish made anouther fine compliment to the engine bay. It positively glistens. That brings us to the present day. 'Bella', as my wife calls her, still has bridges to cross. I'm going to go to black with the interior, Abarth style low back bucket seats. The back seat will be discarded all together.

A new dash with a one piece alloy face plate and some new instruments (no offence Veglia Borletti, but your stuff is unreliable) ought to finish her off nicely. I recently bought a Fuel Injection system with the aim of putting on a turbo in the next 12 months too. My mechanic tells me I should just have her run on dedicated LPG and Supercharge but I'm a little reluctant. I'll let you know when I get to that point.

The great thing about this car is what you get for your money. It has great looks, a hard revving motor, great brakes and gear box and no one knows what the hell it is (In Australia anyway). The other options on offer seem a little soft. Alfa Spider (nice but gay), MGB (Pushrod technology), Triumph Spitfire (Worse than an MGB!). Granted, there are better convertible sports cars out there, but not for the money.

Keep the faith,

Lincoln Mordecai