I've decided to renew my interest in cars and start the new series of posts devoted to future classics.
All the cars in this series could be bought today for a very reasonable price.
And most of them are in good condition and if purchased as such, there will be no need for the complete restoration that could take years, hundreds of working hours and 3 "donor" cars...
Fiat Barcheta
The Barchetta (or the "little boat") was based on the Fiat Punto Mk.I thus all the spare parts are abundant and inexpehsive. For every car, I'll give you some prices picked up from the website www.oscaro.com
- Discs: 75 Eur
- Shock absorbers: from 175 to 255 for the front and from 100 to 250 for the rear
- Clutch kit: from 75 to 125 Eur
- Water pump + all the belts: about 125 Eur
The engine was one and only 1.8 liter petrol engine with 130 hp and 164 Nm.
0-100 km/h time was solid: 8.9 s.
1995 to 2002
The design of the interior was good for that era, but today it certainly looks "plastic".
Facelift, 2003-2006
The facelift was very, very modest.
Basically, the front bumper was changed with the fog lights attached a bit higher.
Personally, I prefer the pre-facelift style.
At the back-end, the change was even smaller, with a bit nicer lower part of the bumper (ok, those are the same).
Interior was also significantly changed, with two switches that replaced old-fashioned slider.
Can you even find them?
Prices:
According to https://www.autoscout24.com
- Cars in working condition with some issues: 1000 - 1500 Eur
- The first quartal, nice cars: about 3500 Eur
- Median price, very nice cars, limited edition, all available equipment: about 4500 Eur
- The end of the third quartal or "I'm not really selling it": about 6000 Eur
As you can see, if you are hobby mechanics, you could start from 1500 - 2000 Eur car and exchange pretty much everything relevant and still end-up securely in the range of the median price.
I think Barchetta could be a nice investment, keeping in mind that we are living in the Age of SUVs and some small, nimble, pointless cabrio could be very refreshing and nostalgic in the next 5 or 10 years.
References:
- https://www.autoscout24.com to get some real photos of real cars
- https://www.oscaro.com/ to get comparative prices for the spare parts
- Wiki of course, to get the basics